46th Ohio

46th Ohio was in McDowell's brigade in Sherman's 5th division.  They were the far left flank of Grant's army at Shiloh. 

In 1864 the regiment was supplied with Spencer repeating rifles.

Figures are Good Ground. 

Half of Cleburne's Brigade

Cleburne's was a lowly brigadier at Shiloh, leading mostly Tennessee regiments with one Arkansas and one Mississippi regiment too. So far I've done 2nd, 5th and 24th Tennesse. 

Right now I'm working on a union regiment, might do a second union regiment before I get back to Cleburne. 

Two of the regiments are Good Ground, while the one seen previously is Pendraken, Good ground will be my main figures for this project, not only because they are made with Western Theater in mind, but now that I've seen them in person I really like the style. Slimmer more realistic proportions, pendraken might have more detail. But they are quite chunky fellas.  

I'm unsure if I got enough figures to complete the brigade. I ordered quite a mix of figures. I got 12 charging figures I really don't know what I'll use for.  I placed a second order for good ground for more union and confederates. Hopefully, that will let me complete both Cleburne's and McDowell's brigades. 

Tiny rebs.

Yet again, I'll try and do an ACW project. I'm giving 10mm another try. Apparently, I did do like 150 10mm ACW many years ago. And had forgotten I'd done so many of them.  I have no idea if I still have them someplace...

First unit up is made up of what I could find of the leftovers from that project. I did manage to scrape exactly 24 together. I also found like 8 union troops that looks to be Iron brigade types. This is the 2nd Tennesee from Cleburne's Brigade at Shiloh, it went into battle with only 365 men.
I haven't settled on a ruleset yet. But I'm leaning towards Picket's charge. I'm familiar with General d'armee which is more or less the same rules but for Napoleoincs. 

 It does look like the 2nd Tennesee used the Hardee battle-flag.  So I gave them that.

Not ideal pictures, I had to up the contrast something awful as it was too dark to take proper pictures. 

Preview/Review: Ultimate General: Civil War

What a fun game!

This is the second  game in what is now a series, called Ulitmate General.
The first game dealt  only with Gettysburg, it had a series of battles that got affected  by how you did,  like if the union held on the first day,  the battle would be different  from how  history recorded the second  day  of Gettysburg.  

The game  was fun, nice to look it, and the selling point was the ease  of control and the AI

Now this second game, will let you play the entire civil  war! (when it's done, as it's in early  access, and the game ends after  Antietam)

You start with creating  your general, through a sort of "light RPG" character creating screen,  You create a general, You choose  which studies you had at West Point  and so get various  points.

Here we meet the first problem, the nr 1 skill  you  have to put points  in is; Army Organisation. This skill is needed to get; more brigades, bigger brigades,  and more corps. You just have to dump  your skill points as much as possible into it. This kinda defeats the purpose of having a choice in  your character creation. The second skill you need  to dump stuff  into is reconnaissance, so you'll be able  to see at least some info on enemy strength. The other skills seem much less important  and you simply fill up some of them  after getting as high as possible in Army Organisation.

The first screen in General creation process.

You then do small battle, where  you have  to  take  a town with  a few thousand men at your disposal. Then hold the town against a counter attack. After this you'll start to build  your army!

After you win the battle  you  get a new skill point(which  goes straight into  army  organization.

And you get; money, manpower, and reputation. Money  is spent on creating  brigades and buying  weapons, manpower is how many recruits  you   have available. And reputation is a sort of political  currency. It  can buy used to "buy" more men, weapons or  generals. But it's also your life-line, if you loose to much reputation you will be fired! 

To start your army  you'll have whatever is left after the first battle. You'll need  to add brigades and divisions as soon as possible. It's relatively cheap to make a new brigade, as  long as  you have enough weapons  in your armory.  However adding veteran reinforcements to brigades you  already have is extremely expensive.  When I neared the battle of Antietam, it cost me some 50 000 to  add 500 veteran reinforcements to my best brigades.  Because  you do get best brigades. Not only can you  buy better weapons to them, But they level up, a  Level 3(the max) Brigade is  a monster compared to  a level 0 brigade. If you got a level 3 brigade with 2500 men(the biggest you can  get a brigade) You can count on them standing under extreme pressure. 

But as I said it's extremely expensive to reinforce them(you can reinforce them with rookies, but then the quality  of the brigade goes down) 

You  move your brigades by simply dragging the mouse from the unit to where  you  want to  go.

You have 4 types of "brigades" Brigades in  this game is a sort of generic term. First and most important is the infantry brigade  which is a proper brigade. They can  be up to 2500 men strong. 

You also have Cavalry brigade, which  can be up  to 750 strong. You have artillery brigade that can be from  a small battery in size(4 guns)  to 24  guns.  And finally you have skirmishers, that ca be up to  500 men.

Each brigade is added  to a division, in the start  you can  only have 3-4  brigades pr. division, but when you have upgraded your army organization   you can  have 6 brigades per. division and  4 divisions per corps.

For  my first proper game, I mostly had 4-5 infantry per division and a battery. Some of my divisions  had cavalry and some had Skirmishers. But at Antietam where I had 65 brigades, I  only had 3 cavalry units, 3 skirmish units, The rest was  regular infantry  and artillery.  

While  you only spend 20% of the game in the Army Organisation screen, I'll  make the claim it's actually  40% of the game,  A badly made army will make it impossible to win.  You'll spend a lot of time taking care of your army. You'll need  to  find officers for your units,  you'll see   both officers and  units level up(promoted for officers) You'll spend a lot of time  finding the right weapons for them. You have many weapons  to choose from,  but availability is a pain. Not only do  you need  the money  for the guns, But there might not be enough guns to supply your brigade. 

And the guns got stats of course, very broadly speaking, the short  range smoothbore have higher melè, while the rifled-muskets have  better range and accuracy.  Why exactly  a  musket is better in melè  then a rifled-musket I do not know, But it's a game. 

But it dosen't help having super fancy guns  if  you can't resupply them after a battle. So often you  end up  using weapons  you captured  after a battle.  

You also  have supply you need to look  after, Each corps have a supply wagon, that resupplies  your army  in a battle.  It will run out! You  can max have 25000 supply. If  you  got 30-40 guns going off and a 20  000 soldiers firing  of  their weapons, those  25000 will go in minutes! You  can capture the enemy supply wagons, these can be used  in the battle,  but if you don't use them up in that battle the remaining supplies  will be added to yours after the battle. 

From the first battle asUnion

I  will tell you, you  will be attached   to your units. For simplicity's sake, I made each of my divisions  "state divisions"  So my   first division was  a New York division. With 1st New york Brigade, 2nd New York  Brigade, 1st New York Artillery etc.  My Second was a Maine division. 

I also  had Rhoad Island, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio etc.

Two units I did get very attached  to was 1st New York Brigade and 1st Maine Brigade. 

1st New york, had been with me since  the first battle.  And my 1st Maine was my Killer Angles and  had been  with me since my second battle. After  Antietam, they had like 12000 kills after  over a year of campaigning, I   almost lost them  twice, at Shiloh  they were down   to 350  men and at Gains Mill they  were down  to 240 men, At Antietam, they lost  1300 men. 

The screen  you get  after winning the first battle.

When you've  finished  playing in the army organization screen it's time to do battle.  Before each major battle(1st Manassas, Shiloh etc.)  you have optional  battles, smaller actions  that will let  you get experience, money,  and manpower.

The battles play  out mostly like the first game, they  have  improved stuff, making it easier  to create cohesive  battle lines. They have also   made artillery  much easier to   handle, no need to micro them, simply put them  some place, and the rest is automatic,  the guns unlimber and they also choose  the ammo them self. So  they automatically go for canister at close range. 

But the battles are also  the biggest problem so far in the game. They are not dynamic. 

So  if I loose 20 000  men in a  battle, I'll need to reinforce my army with  whatever resources  I  have.  This does not  apply to the ai. You can almost wipe the ai   army of the face of the planet, and the next battle it's at full strength. It's a shame, it would be very cool if   you could win the game by simply destroy  the enemy army in a giant battle. But you can't and  I guess they won't add it,  As  the campaign  will be many hours long, but if   you win after 4 major battles the campaign will be 4 hours  long not 25 hours long. 

My Army  early in the game.

A little later,  with  a 2nd corps added.

And the second big problem with the battle is the scripting.

One of the more dramatic examples of this is at Shiloh, At the start of the  battle,  you need to  hold Shiloh Church and the  Hornet's nest. And I did, I held them both. Yet in day 2 my entire army gets magically  transported to Pitsburg landing. And I have to retake  both these places. I had by the 2nd day almost destroyed the  CSA army, I   had probebly a  5:1  advantage in  forces. So  I why would I pull back?

Other   then these  problems, there are just some bugs here and there(again not a finished game)

The rebs throw them self at my lines, you see all those brown/grey corpes in the stream? Yeah a dozen 12 pdr Napoleons will do  that over a few hours.

After doing two smaller actions, I  have only 1st Bull  Run left,  and I need to do it, to continue on.

There is also  the problem  with the difficulty, I played my first  proper campaign as Union  on easy, I won every single battle(  you aren't suppose to win  all battles)  While I was challenged  in the battles and needed   to keep on   my toes. I still won them all. I'm  going to try now on Normal, But I'm afraid Normal will be too  hard  and I'll never reach Antietam. Because I played on  easy I  had 25% more manpower and money. So I could have 5 brigades I always filled with veteran reinforcements. This gives me an edge. 

How it looked before Antietam. 

The game is extremely fun, I spent almost 15 hours on this first campaign, so a full one  with all the battles will  last at least 20 maybe close to 30 hours.  I have laid out the things I'm not a fan   of, I doubt most of them will be changed. As I said,  it's a bit frustrating destroying  an enemy army just to  see it complete and intact the  next battle but if  you don't do it, it's perfectly possible you'll never see  half the battles as  you  destroyed the enemy army early in  the game. I  mean I lost 18 000 men at Antietam, the south lost 24 000 out of 46 000. I still  would have over 60 000 against their 22 000, So I  would most  likely have won the war after the  next battle.

 Now again I played on easy, this would be much harder on  normal or hard, but then some people are much  better than   me at this, and so even on  hard some players would destroy  the enemy early on. The one thing I  hope they  do change is the scripting  of the battles. We might not get a dynamic  campaign, but dynamic  battles would have been nice.

I recommend the game as it is now, without hesitation , but if you want  to wait a few months, you can do  that,  the game is on early accsess, but the game is quite complete, so it won't be years and yeasrs in  early accsess hell.

The game is out on steam  now, and when  done will also come to Ipad.

The Death of the confederacy? Kemper with his back  to the river getting shot up by  30 canon and thousands of soldiers.

Blue bellies

 So I got my plastic perry ACW, I love these guys, this is from the very first plastic perry box, the box that kinda started the whole hard plastic hisotric thing, It was a good choice, quite simple uniform, some ability to use it for both sides(tho it's not 100% kosher) Really you could do an entire division for both sides with just sevral of this box. Only needing to add metal guns(now plastic guns are out)

You do notice it was perrys first dip into plastics, the some of the figures are kinda "odd" on their sides were things are "streched" How ever, they will hold up great. It apears the figures just lends it self to good painting, generaly the best ACW figures I've seen painted have been these, either as union or more often rebs. I think it has to do with the folds on the jackets and trousers that just makes it easy to get the most out of your paint job. I feel theise look great, I feel I got a good dark blue and good light blue for the union. The jackets are Foundry Union blue triad and a extra highlight of festerblue from coat d arms.

The trousers are all coat de arms, shade hiduous blue, mid is light blue, and just a tiny bit of lighlight of bravarian blue.

The figures look good, but are kinda a cop out, making one box useable for both sides, means some are shell jackets other sack coats. If you want a full unit in either one, you need like 4 boxes I think, That would give you 2 union sack coated, and 2 reb shell jackets.

Also halfish of the box is fireing line, so if you want 30+ regiments you have to always buy 2 boxes. That should give you 36 marching, and I think 30-32 fireing, that is if you use some of the officer models as standard barers. So yes, you notice it's the first plastic set from the perries, but they are still some of the best figures to paint if you want them to look good.

 I love the colors I got, Great 3D effect.

I want all my ACW units to be 30+, simply because I feel if they are smaller they do not get the "long thin line" effect, 28mm figures are fat, and so hard to get the feel that it is infact a thin 2 deep line, it's easier to get that feel in 15mm. At 24  figures it's ok, but really you need 30+ for it too look "right"

ACW Mini diorama

 I'm straying further and further from 18th century. I did go to perry to buy a battlion of rifles. instead I bought 4 boxes of ACW infantry(2 of the generic and 2 of the confederate) and a box of arty.
I wanted to paint some ACW, and had some random figures laying around, Sash and saber, not enough to make a unit out of. So I thought I'd try a mini diorama. And just to practice painting and basing.

A round base, with 5 rebs on it, two puddles, lots of green stuff and some rocks.

Some rebs have found a damaged fence to hide deployd behind. I did want to put a small tree on it, but I don't have that many trees, so bushes instead.
Poured some ink into gloss vanish for the puddle. Only semi successfull!

I think the paint jobs are prety good,

Did a good job on the rifled muskets, the barrles are gun metal, but the bands are silver, to make them "pop" more,

A line of grey and butternutt clad troops

 I'm watching a documantary about the ACW, I've watched in a dozen times, nobody in the states know about it, was a low budget thing made in the early 90s or late 80s, it's not as "fancy" as Ken Burns film, it's mostly talking heads, a narator and lots and lots of video of huge reeacmetns, and the reenactments are from those battles they talk about, so you kinda feel you are watching that battle.

Anyway Simple yet great, I like it better the Ken Burns film. But i like that fact that you can sum up an ACW army on the colors, sevral times you hear the narator says. A endless line of blue lines, or a massive force of grey and butternut clad troops ect.

  A 20 man regiment, I have enough figures for two more regiments, I'll try and aim low on this project, 7 regiments pr side, 1 unit of cav for each and 1 battery for each.

 I like the figures, and I like my own pain job, I like the officer, amazing how just yellow cufs help bring out some color.

They are all painted with either butternut triad or rebel grey triad, musket stock triad, all from foundry. also sliver baynets, and musket bands, the barrle is panzer grey(as the barrles or the Enfield was black)

Bluecoats

 So I got some blue moon ACW, they are very good, I had started on some BH ACW, but they are no were near as good at these.

 Lots of little details, like som have coffey cups on thier napsacks, diffrent styles of bears and facial hair. I like the colors I've used here, 3 colors on the trousers, 3 colors on the coat.

 3 colors on the musket to,

 This is gonna be a 27 strong unit.

More Hood's Texans

So I thought I was done with this unit, but I've decided to expand it to a 24 figure unit instead of 18.

So again this is really Iron brigade figures, just painted as hood's texans.

I did all the frock coas in grey, with some butter nut trousers.

This is my rebs so far,

Finished Battery

So this is a two model battery, representing 4 real guns, which is the standard number of rebel guns. This works for like a bazlilion rules, Guns at gettysburg, Black powder, and ofcourse fire and fury.

Hoods division had like 4 batteries I think.

It's kinda anoying, the evil rebs have divisional artillery park, but the evil yankies only got corps artillery park, I guess my union division could have attached artillery.

Also there is a big diffrence in the size of these formations, So basicly Hoods division has 18 regiments and 4 batteries, the union 1st division/5th Corps only got 12 regiments and no artillery. Even if you give the 20th Maine ungoodly powers like close air suport and a couple of miniguns it's still a big diffrence,

All in all a good looking battery.