'Dominion of Risorgimento' : Palestro 1859

In between counting and photographing vintage Minifigs,  I fancied a quick and easy bit of gaming with my 6mm Risorgimento 1859 armies.  I have to thank Bob Cordery for his most timely pointing out that the latest  'Dominion of..'  rulesets to be release included  Dominion of Otto von Bismarck,  which cover the period from the Crimean to Franco-Prussian wars. at around £5 from Wargames Vault, they looked worth a try.   

As you may be aware, these are very simple rules, designed for solo play and using only about 6 units per side, so games can be played in pretty quick time - and from my experience with the Pike and Shot version, they have some interesting and subtle mechanisms. In this case, Infantry are defined as 'Line' (mainly relying on firepower)  or 'Column'  (mainly fighting in assault columns), and this seems a fair reflection of the period. Artillery can be kept in the 'reserve' area and used for bombardment in support of attacks by other units, which can be very effective.

The rules include scenarios and army lists for 24 historical battles, one of which is Palestro 1859, which suits my current  'Piedmont vs Austria'  setup (really must get some French next!),  and with  the forces  comprising five or six units each side, very easy to  find armies for.  So I gave it a go, and here is the intial deployment - Peidmontese nearest the camera. 

 

Historically, the Piedmontese had counter-attacked the invading Austrians and re-taken the village of Palestro on the River Sesia, and the Austrians then attempted to push the Piedmontese out of their defensive positions. In the suggested scenario,  Piedmont has three 'Line' Infantry units in defensive  positions  ( denoted by the walls )  as their front line, with the right-hand unit also being Elite status - these were the French 3rd Zouave regiment on the day, but I used Piedmontese Grenadiers (must get some French next!).  That unit was concealed (hence trees) and could not be bombarded by artillery until they had revealed themselves by engaging in combat.  In reserve (back line) they had two 'Column' infantry units, which were deemed 'unreliable' to simulate the uncertainty of reinforcements arriving. 'Unreliable' units have to roll a die before their first combat - they will either rout and be eliminated, or become 'regular' and fight as normal. You might have noticed that I deployed 'Column' units in a sort of T-shape formation representing the attack column with skirmishers out front, and 'Line' units in simple blocks. 

The Austrian force had three 'Column' infantry units on the front line and ready to attack, plus two more 'Column' units and one Artillery unit in Reserve - the latter being able to fire in support of attacks by the front-line units. So, they had the advantage of one extra infantry unit and supporting srtillery, but were facing 'dug in' defenders, one unit of whom had Elite status. And so, to battle..

The basic turn mechanism is for the attacker to go first and specify one sector of the table (Left, Centre or Right ) to mount an attack, with combat taking place between the opposing front-line units in that sector  ( note that since this is a solo game, it's easier to keep the same sectors as 'Left' or 'Right' for both sides - in this case, as per the photos ). Once that attack is resolved, the Defender takes their turn to attack in their specified sector. The choice of sector is decided by the active player rolling a die - they may be able to choose their attack sector, or have the choice forced upon them, depending how the die roll goes. So there's an element of uncertainty in that decision, the Commanders are not in complete control of their forces and fighting may break out in unintended places - which seems quite a reasonable, 'fog of war' effect.

Turn One opened with an Austrian attack in the Left Scctor (having rolled a high enough score to choose), where on of their 'Column' Infantry faced an entrenched  Piedmontese 'Line'. The Austrians could also have their Artillery fire on the enemy unit first - it did so, but missed.  In the subsequent combat, 'Line' units fire first (all combat rolls are one D6), but have less chance of scoring a hit, then surviving 'Column' units can charge home, with a better chance - rather subtle.  In this case the Piedmontese shooting was too good, scoring a hit and eliminating the attacking Austrians.  An eliminated unit must be replaced from Reserve - so one of the two reserved Austrian  'Column'  units stepped up.  In the Piedmontese turn, the Die decided on a 'Centre' attack;  there were no Piedmontese artillery, so no bombardment. In the combat the  tables were turned, with the Peidmontese scoring a 'miss'  and the Austrians rolling high - the Piedmontese unit was Eliminated, and had to be replaced by one of the two 'Unreliable Infantry 'Column' units from Reserve.   Each side lost one unit in Turn One, but perhaps Austria did better, knocking out a dug-in unit which was only replaced by 'Unreliable' reserves. 

Turn One: Piedmont centre weakened?

 

Turn Two started well for Austria; again getting choice of attack sector, they chose the Centre. Their artillery missed again, but the 'Unreliable' defending Piedmon unit rolled low on its reaction test, and promptly routed! It was replaced by the second, and last, also 'Unreliable' unit from reserve. Piedmontese pride was restored on their turn; the die roll forced them to attack on the Left, but their 'Line' unit there rolled high and defeated the opposing Austrian 'Column' unit. It was replaced by another 'Column', leaving only the Artillery in Austrian reserve. Losses still even at two units each, but that Piedmont centre looked quite worrying, and reserves were denuded..

Turn 2 : Front lines holding, but Reserves almost gone

On Turn Three,  fighting broke out on the Left (decided by the die roll), and the Austrian  Artillery finally got the range, scoring a hit which removed the 'Dug-In' advantage from the defending Piedmont unit.  Piedmont's 'Line' unit then missed, but so did the attacking Austrian Column, so no decision there. The Dice Gods favoured the Austrians, however, as Piedmont's roll  indicated the same Left sector again, the defending Line unit's shooting was again ineffective, and the attacking Column charged home and overran them! With no units left in Reserve, Piedmont could not replace the loss, leaving their Left sector undefended.  Things looked bad for the Italians.. 

Turn 3 : Piedmont Left gone - is it all up for them?

 Would Turn Four spell the end for the Piedmontese?  The Austrian die roll denoted fighting breaking out on the Right, where all had been quiet until then - and here lurked the Elite Piedmont Grenadiers. As noted above, these were concealed and could not be bombarded by artillery, so the Austrian Column had to fight unsupported - and were promptly shot down by the Grenadiers' musketry. This was a double blow, as it forced the Austrian artillery to come out of reserve to fill the front line gap, leaving it unable to bombard in support of other sectors AND facing an Elite enemy!  On Piedmont's turn the worst promtly  happened for Austria - the die roll decided on the Right sector again, and the artillery were sent packing by the Piedmont Grenadiers!  That Elite unit had really proved its worth. 

Now the opposing sides are each allowed one attempt to 'Rally' and bring back one routed unit, and at this point ( luckily I remembered the rule!) both sides took advantage of that  - and both sides rolled high and succeeded. The Austrians were able to rally their Artillery (hmm, perhaps an Infantry would have been better?)  and put it back in place on the Right, and Piedmont rallied one Line Infantry, and filled the gap on the Left.  With three units each left, the Piedmontese had held things together, at least, and their Grenadiers looked well placed for potential further success. 

Turn 4 : successful Rallies fill the gaps

 

Turn Five opened with  the Austrian die roll indicating combat in the Centre, where Column faced Column, so combat rolls would be simultaneous - but first the 'Unreliable' Piedmont unit must test, and failure could spell disaster.  The die was rolled - success, the Piedmont unit held its ground! Better yet for them, in the ensuing combat the Austrians were defeated, leaving their Centre wide open, no reserves available. The Dice Gods were merciless then - the Piedmont roll indicated 'Centre' again, and this allowed the unopposed  Piedmontese centre unit to attack the flank of the Austrians on the left..

Turn 5 - Piedmontese flank attack

 In a flanking attack, the attacker gains an advantage on its die roll and the defender cannot fight back - and the Piedmontese attackers rolled high. The last Austrian Infantry unit was sent routing, and with only their Artillery unit left to oppose three enemy units, Austria was soundly defeated! 

How it ended - only Artillery remain for Austria! 

 

So that was that; I rather enjoyed the game. For such a simple syatem, there are some interesting and subtle features which felt 'right', and for fans of quick games, it probably would have taken only about half an hour, had I not been taking plentiful notes and photographs.  Apart from just 'a quick game', the obvious use for this would be for a 'mini-campaign' where map moves could generate  multiple battles which could each be resolved very simply and quickly.  I also think that it would be interesting to 'tweak' and add to the rules; I think it might be worth making 'bigger' games,  perhaps increasing the number of sectors on the board and/or maybe the number of units per sector, and perhaps bringing in more terrain effects and thus enabling more 'meaningful' terrain to be placed? My only hesitation about the basic system is that  the commander's choices can feel quite limited  ( the downside of the die roll for sector choice), and there isn't really a concept of 'manouevre' - would it be good to be able to move units between sectors, to bolster weak points or reinforce successes?  I'm sure others have been thinking along some or all of these lines.

For a quick and simple game, that has set quite a few thoughts running, as well as simply  being enjoyable.  I hope my description has been of interest to you, too! 

Now I need to get back to sorting through the 'Minifigs haul' - more pictures to come soon, Probably before that happens, though, I am  lucky enought to be promised a bit of 'Face to Face' gaming this coming week, with Black Powder's  Pike and Shotte variant and Edgehill 1642 as the scenario, which promises to be interesting and fun, and will be fully reported in a future post, if possible.   Until then, keep well everyone and (if in the UK)  enjoy your holiday weekend!

Risorgimento 1859: Primo Incontro

 In my last-but-one post  I set out the initial deployments for my first game using 6mm scale armies for the Italian war of 1859 - now the game has been completed, and I can report how things went. 

To quickly recap, I used the 'Minigame' scenario fron Neil Thomas' excellent Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe   - and of course the rules from the same book.  The defending Piedmontese are nearest the camera in the picture below, with attacking Austrians in the entirely fictional village of Primo Incontro and ranged along the road at the top.  

 Unbeknown to the Italians, a flanking force of Austrian cavalry and Jagers would arrive from  the East (right) on turn three.  Whoever controlled the village and the hill after ten turns would be the winner. 

 The attacker always goes first, so on Turn 1 the Austrian 1st Infantry (on the road East of the village) formed column and began to advance on the hill, while their 2nd Infantry deployed for the defence of the  village. Their artillery (on the road between the two infantry units) opened fire on the Piedmontese (2nd) Infantry unit on the hill.  The general idea was to 'pin' the Piedmontese near the hill and keep them busy until the flanking force arrived, while simply holding the village against any attack.  It seems that the Austrian gunners were somewhat  out of practise, missing with their first shot.  

The firing mechanism is simple - assuming in range and line-of-sight, roll a number of D6 dice per firing base (artillery have one base), which in the case of Smoothbore Artillery is 2 dice. The score required to hit depends on the target type - in this case Loose Order Infantry ( i.e. lots of  skirmishers backed by a formed 'main body' )  in Line, among  the hardest to hit. Needing 5 or 6 on each D6, the gunners rolled a 1 and a 3 - better luck next time. 

In response, the Piedmontese  Grenadiers advanced up the road towards the village, with the 1st Infantry unit following them up.  Piedmont's artillery near the hill opened fire on the advancing Austrian 1st Infantry - a slightly easier target as the Austrians were in column formation - and were clearly more practised than their opposite numbers, scoring  2 hits with 2 dice.  If a unit suffers 4 hits, it will lose a base ( infantry have  4 bases ), so no immediate effect, but the Austrian foot were taking casualties..  What's more, their advance had brought them within range of the Piedmontese 2nd Infantry's  rifled muskets - these let loose a volley ( muskets get 1 D6 per base, so the fresh unit rolled 4D6 ) and scored a further two hits.  Thus the Austrian foot had suffered 4 hits and must lose one of its four bases:  this in turn triggered a morale test. 

Morale tests are very simple, triggered by (a) losing a base to fire (b) cavalry fired on by a unit they are charging, or (c) losing a hand-to-hand combat. The procedure is a simple 1D6 roll, with poorer quality troops less likely to pass. If the test is failed, a complete base is removed - simple but quite 'impactful'.  The Austrians rolled - and failed, losing another base, as men presumably dropped out of the formation rather than face the withering fire.  So this Austrian unit was reduced to half-strength by concentrated fire in one turn - clearly these rules lean towards the 'fast and furious'!

With apologies for the strong shadows of a sunny afternoon in Lombardy, above  are the somewhat battered Austrian foot (top)  facing musketry and cannonade at the end of the first turn.

 For Turn Two, the Austrian 1st Infantry came to a shocked halt and formed firing line, rather than trying to advance further.  Their  artillery  and 2nd Infantry (in the village) held position. All three units gave fire:  the artillery and 1st Infantry versus Piedmont 2nd Infantry on the hill, and the 2nd Infantry from the village fired on the Piedmont Grenadiers column. The diminshed 1st Infantry and obviously poorly-trained gunners both missed, but the 2nd Infantry scored two hits on the advancing Grenadiers. In Piedmont's turn these same Grenadiers thought better of advancing under more fire, and formed line to return fire. 1st  Infantry came up on their right in column, to give support. The Grenadiers opened fire on the village - and missed.  On and around the hill, the Piedmontese guns and 2nd Infantry kept pounding Austrian 1st Infantry, between them inficting three more hits. That Austrian unit was looking very ragged by now - the flanking force couldn't arrive too soon!  Piedmont's general may have had some reasons for confidence, having almost shattered one Austrian unit and massing infantry for a possible attack on the village - hopefully his artillery could switch to fire in support. 

End of Turn 2 : Piedmont looking strong

 And so to Turn Three - and things started to happen very quickly!  The Austrian flanking force could appear anywhere on the Eastern (right) edge of the table - of course they chose to arrive near the hill. They were close enough to allow the Austrian cavalry to immediately charge the Piedmont (2nd) Infantry on the hill, taking them in the flank! In these rules, cavalry are pretty vulnerable to fire, and must check morale if fired on during their charge ( even if no bases lost ), so frontal charges look authentically ill-advised : but from the flank, the infantry have no chance to fire..   The accompanying Jagers, in skirmish formation, advanced in support on the cavalry's left (South).   

Before the cavalry attack could be resolved, the remaining Austrian firing must be carried out - and the appearance of support must have raised morale along the line.  The 2nd Infantry in the village inflicted another hit on the Piedmont Grenadiers, the  Austrian gunners finally found their mark, and the battered 1st Infantry also scored a hit - these latter two on Piedmont 2nd Infantry, to add to their woes as the cavalry thundered in! 

Turn 3 : Cavalry charge - to the flank! 

 For Hand-to-Hand combat, each unit rolls a number of dice per base, and for cavalry vs, foot in Line that is 3 dice, plus one dice per base for the flank attack. Which gave the Austrians 16 dice.. needing 4,5 or 6 to hit. This is what 16 dice looked like: 

 

Seven hits, that will be pretty devastating. The Piedmont infantry had a basic one D6 per base, and I generously gave them a couple of extra dice because half the Cavalry unit was downhill of them - 6 dice. They did relatively better -  4 hits - but not well enough to stave off disaster...

Having already taken 2 hits from firing, the Piedmontese foot suffered 9 hits in all, therefore lost 2 bases.  Suffering 7 hits to 4 in the melee, they had lost the hand-to-hand combat round, and had to take two morale tests as a result.  One of these tests was failed, so another base gone, leaving only one base. The shattered remnants of the unit must retreat 12cm, and fell back alongside their artillery (which was now looking very vulnerable!).  The victorious Austrian Cavalry, having taken 4 hits, lost one base, but needed no morale check having won the combat, and might now inflict further mayhem.  A disasterous blow for Piedmont! 

On Piedmont's turn,  frantic re-aligning was needed, the guns swinging around 90 degrees to face the rampaging cavalry - but as a result, could not fire. The threatened attack on the village had to be abandoned,  with 1st Infantry turning East and marching hurriedly to support their comrades on the right.  The Grenadiers pulled back from the village, out of musketry range.  The only firing was from the shattered 2nd Infantry's sole remaining base, which did at least score a hit on their Austrain cavalry nemesis. Small compensation..

End of Turn 3 - quite a change!

 

Turn Four, and  the inevitable happened: the Austrian Cavalry just kept going, charging at the Piedmont guns! Now the procedure is that the defenders fire first, before the chargers move in. So the guns fired at long range, rather than close (canister) range. Which does leave a rules quibble - musket-armed troops , for example, being charged are allowed to fire even if the chargers start out of musket range - but there is no equivalent statement about artillery being able to fire at close range using canister. I wondered about a 'house rule',  perhaps a die roll test to see if the gunners can hold their nerve and wait to fire case-shot?   Anyway, I treated the cannon fire as long range, the guns had 2D6 and scored 1 hit. That was enough to trigger a morale check on the cavalry, who failed the test and lost a base - but two bases still remained to charge home.  

Meanwhile the Jagers (skirmishers)  had the capability to fire and move (or move and fire), firing first at Piedmont 2nd Infantry ( missed) and then moving forward, swinging round to threaten the flank of their target.  At the same time, Piedmont's 1st Infantry was hurrying across the Austrian front, and attracted fire from both the Austrian guns and their 1st Infantry, who needed to turn 45 degrees  - this reduced their fire effect somewhat.  The Piedmontese escaped unscathed - both guns and muskets missed. 

Which brings us to the crucial clash as the Austrian Cavalry charge hit the Piedmont guns.. The cavalry rolled 4D6 per base - so 8 dice in all.  The gunners had only 1D6 in reply, and things went all too predictably - the cavalry rolled no less than 6 hits, and the gunners none.  Six hits of course wiped out the Piedmont artillery - strike two to the Austrian horsemen!   

In all that excitment, I omitted to take a 'before' picture for the cavalry vs artillery melee: all I can show is the 'after', with a gap where the guns used to be.. 

 On their turn,  more frantic re-organisation from the Piedmontese - their 1st Infantry in column was now looking at the still-rampaging enemy cavalry and feeling quite nervous!  They hurriedly formed line, ready to fire. 2nd Infantry's single remaining base formed into column and retreated as fast as they could, taking shelter behind their comrades.  The Grenadiers were summoned to help too, marching to meet the Austrian Jagers and prevent an envelopment. All thoughts of taking the village were forgotten..  In the Firing phase, 1st Infantry loosed off a volley at the enemy cavalry and did well - 4 hits! ( Cavalry are very  vulnerable to fire )  That took another base from the cavalry - they passed the required morale check, but had only one base left. Perhaps their run of luck was ending at last.

Turn 4 End: Piedmont shoring up their flank

 On Turn 5, the Austrian commander wisely pulled his cavalry back, moving the Jagers onto the hill - thus for now,  Austria held one and contested the other battlefield objective. Their 1st Infantry held position, and their 2nd Infantry were emboldened to advance from the village, up the road to threaten the Piemont left.  No less than 3 Austrian units ( artillery, 1st Infantry and Jagers) poured fire onto Piedmont 1st infantry, but only the gunners were accurate, and scored just one hit. Piedmont in their turn formed the Grenadiers into line, turning to face the Austrians coming down the road; the remnants of 2nd infantry supporting them, while 1st infantry held position, giving fire at the Austrian 2nd Infantry, who are within range and a 45 degree firing arc.  Their volley scored 1 hit, but the Austrians had accumulated 3 hits previously, hence lost a base - and then failed their morale check, and lost a second and final base.  Austrian 1st infantry fell apart, some respite for the Italians.  the Austrians still seemed to have the upper hand, but had taken greater losses ( 7 bases to 4 ) and had only one full-strength infantry unit against two Piedmontese.

End of Turn 5 : the hill is contested 

 

The Austrians might still prevail, if they could  hold the objectives, so on Turn 6 their 2nd Infantry halted on the road, the Jagers held position on the hill, and the remaining cavalry base manoeuvered to threaten the flank of the Piedmont 1st infantry.  Their guns and Jagers kept up a steady fre on that same infantry unit, which suffered two more hits. This was worrying for the Piedmontese, but did not stop them wheeling to fire on the enemy cavalry - with good effect, scoring no less than three hits, enough to remove the cavalry's fourth and final  base.  A short but spectacular career for those Austrian horsemen!

By Turn 7,  it was clear to the Austrians that they could no longer win, but hoped they might hold out for a draw. Their 2nd Infantry retired towards the village, intent on holding that objective. The Jagers still held position on the hill, and the gunners kept firing. But the dice weren't with them - firing on Piedmont 1st Infantry, both Jagers and guns missed.  Piedmont's commander was now determined to recover the hill, with 1st Infantry turning their muskets on the enemy Jagers (scoring 1 hit) while the Grenadiers formed column and marched towards the South of the hill - the Jagers now threatened by two full infantry units and at risk of being outflanked.

Turn 7 : Austrian Jagers  (right) under threat

 Turn 8 saw the end of the battle.  The Austrians simply held their positions, and their gunners dealt a blow to 1st Piedmont infantry, scoring a hit which removed a base, with the infantry then failing their morale check and losing a second base. But in their turn, the Piedmont infantry were able to form column and  charge at the Jagers - the latter's fire scored one hit, but to no effect, and the Italians charged home. In the resulting hand-to-hand combat the skirmishing Jagers were no match for an infantry attack column, suffering 2 hits to 1 and losing the combat. Being forced to retire 12cm, the Jagers were dislodged from the hill, with no real chance of retaking it.  

With losses at 8 bases for the Austrians vs. 6 bases for Piedmont, both sides had taken pretty heavy casualties. Each side held one objective; Austria the village, Piedmont the hill. Piedmont could hold the hill with two infantry units while keeping out of artillery range, but did not have the strength to take the village, which was  occupied by infantry and supported by guns. Austria could hold the village, but had nothing available to take the hill.  At which point, I called an end to the fighting, and declared a draw. 

Turn 8 and the end : an honourable draw

 

The butcher's bill: Austrians at front

 I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and really liked the rules - in true Neil Thomas style, simple but subtle, I think!  The action moved quickly, rules were assimilated easily, and felt 'right' for the period. In particular the effects of firepower are becoming more powerful, and cavalry is very vulnerable to musketry, so don't try a frontal charge - but if you can take the enemy in the flank...! Only one rules query came up ( the one about guns using canister when charged ), and I feel a simple 'tweak' should sort that out. One 'classic' tactical scenario did not come up, as no infantry column managed to get within charge range of an enemy infantry line; it would have been nice to work through that situation and see how it worked out - bloodily, I suspect!  I have perhaps given  too much detail  here for some,  given the small size of the game, but I did want to explain some of the basic mechanisms - I think they work pretty well.  Given the quite fast and furious nature of the game, I think these rules should be pretty good for much larger battles, too - better get  painting  some more units! 

I hope this has been interesting and fun for anyone thinking of trying these rules and/or  this period - well worth a go, I'd say!  I am much encouraged and will try a more ambitious setup next time. 

My next hobby event is due this very evening,  as I step up to enter the medieval mincing machine that is Jon Frietag's  WotR  Battle of  Mortimer's Cross!  I look forward to that, and to his report after the game. Next time here, perhaps some more thoughts on the Risorgimento, orders of battle and possible future games.  Until then keep well, everyone.      

  

Risorgimento 1859 : Preparing for Battle

Having painted and based a reasonable  number of figures for my 'Risorgimento' 1859  Italian campaign project, I have recently managed to complete some scenery too, and found I had enough of both for battle to commence. 

This has all been inspired by Neil Thomas' excellent book Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878, and I took a look at his suggested scenarios for a first game - one thing Mr. Thomas does very well is scenarios.   As I have limited space and not too much 6mm scenery, and have not used the rules before,  I thought a small battle would be the best place to start. It turns out he has just the thing: Scenario 5 - The Minigame.   This is designed for a table only 2 feet ( 60cm ) square, and five units per side - ideal for me. 

The terrain is very simple - a  village at a crossroads, a wooded area and a hill. Using my Hexon terrain and  6mm scenery I was able to create the table layout  quite easily.

The Battlefield: North at the top 

 

The hexes have no bearing on the game - just very easy to use and give a nice look! As you can see I don't have many trees, but there were just enough ( from Heroics and Ros, I think ) to mark out a 'wooded' area.  Buildings are from Timecast and roads MDF from Pendraken, 'surfaced' and painted by me. The village and the hill are objectives for both sides - to win, both must be controlled by the end of  Turn 10. 

Dice were rolled and a table consulted to decide on army composition. The resulting Austrian force was as follows: 

        2 x Line Infantry

        1 x Skirmishers

        1 x Cavalry

        1 x Artillery

   Quite a nice mix of an 'all arms' force. 

Their Piedmontest opponents came up with quite a different army: 

        3 x Infantry

        2 x Artillery 

This could be interesting!   

Next, roll for sides: Piedmont won an opposed die roll, and opted to be 'Defender', which seemed sensible given their lack of fast-moving troops. As Defenders, the Piedmontese now rolled to discover their baseline - the dice determimed this would be the Southern table edge.   

Finally 'Pre-Battle Events', an interesting way to introduce some 'friction'  - quite fun for a solo gamer. Each side rolls a dice and consults another table : the Austrians rolled up 'Flank March', meaning that two of their units will appear on either enemy flank. At least one of these must be Cavalry, and none may be Artillery.     Another die roll will decide upon which of Turn 2, 3 or 4 they arrive. 

Piedmont was less fortunate, rolling up a 'Bogged Down' event -  one Artillery unit is eliminated. Not so good! 

Here are the resulting armies: 

Austrian attackers

   

defending Piedmontese

 

Figures are a mix of Baccus metals ( they have a Risorgmento' range for this exact period )  and Commission Figurines MDF ( a  polyglot mix from their ACW and Napoleonic ranges ) 

Working more or less from the suggested  army lists which are also in the book,  the units are organised as follows: 

Austrians:    Line Infantry ( 2 units)  Average Quality, Rifled Musket, Loose Order 

                    Skirmishers  (Feld-Jagers)  : Elite,  Rifled Musket

                    Cavalry  ( Cuirassiers ) :  Average Quality

                    Artillery : Smoothbore 

  Piedmont:   Line Infantry  (2 units) : Average, Rifled Musket, Loose Order 

                     Grenadiers (1 unit ) :  Elite, Rifled Musket, Loose Order 

                      Artillery : Smoothbore. 

Conveniently, both sides get just one Elite unit, and artillery are equally matched - the Austrians just have that one unit advantage owing to the poor quality of Piedmontese roads! 

Now to deployments - Defender first, each side within 15cm of their baseline, omitting the Austrian 'Flank March' units.   Here's how they deployed:

Initial setup - Piedmontese nearest the camera

The defending Piedmont general secured the hill objective with a unit  of infantry and his guns, placed his Grenadiers more centrally by the road,  and  was wary of a possible flank attack through the woods, hence placed his other infantry unit on there.  The Attacking Austrian general was obliged to use his cavalry unit and one other for his Flank March - he chose his next-fastest moving unit, the Feld Jagers. That gave something of a quandry there were only  remaining 3 units - two infantry and one artillery -on the table at the start. How to attack against superior numbers?  He decided to 'demonstrate' at first, placing one infantry unit  on the road through the village, guns in the centre and the other infantry unit  out on his right ( East ) flank.  The 'Flank March' force arrival time  was diced for - they would appear on Turn 3, and on the  East table  edge. The more open flank would allow freedom to the cavalry, and hopefully allow the hill objective to be assaulted promptly.  The Piedmontese may have made a mistake in assuming the woods on their left might be infiltrated..   

Here's an 'aerial view', taken perhaps by an intrepid passing balloonist 

 The scene is set, the forces are about to engage. At the time of writing, the game has not yet been played through, so we will have to wait for the next post here to see the outcome. Let's hope it's an interesting one!  Until then, keep well everyone.

Italian Scenery, and going to Salute 52

I'm trying to get back into the swing of my hobby after a bit of a lull and some 'real life' stuff taking up time; we have a tiny bit of progress in the 'Risorgimento'  Italy 1859 project, in the form of some scenery. 

I have no scenery whatsoever in 6mm scale, so started from scratch - need some buildings. A small order from Timecast has recently arrived, with a nice selection of their Mediterranean/Italian buildings. 

These are rather nice, made of resin with just enough detail for my taste and painting abilities,  and will hopefully paint up OK in a simple 'whitewashed walls and red roof tiles' sort of colour scheme.  Enough for a village or small town on the table. I hope.

Given the 1859 setting, a novel but  important feature of the landscsape will be railway lines, and I was pleased to find that I could buy 6mm scale railway tracks from Blotz:

 

I picked these up at the Cavalier show in February. Each pack contains 6 lengths, each 12cm hence a total of 72cm of track - I bought two 'to be sure, to be sure' as St. Patrick might have said, and that should be plenty to be going on with, given that my usual table is about 90cm square.  As you can probably see, they are in pre-cut MDF, the parts break out quite easily and assembly is simple, just slot two thin 'rail' pieces into the track-bed piece and Robert is your mother's brother*. 

So that's a start, now we need some roads, rivers, trees etc. I think some of the narrower roads I already have for 15mm scale might be used - ideally about 30mm wide, to fit the base width of my armies.  Some of this stuff might be fairly easily scratchbuilt at minimal expense ( I also suspect that some more buildings might be fairly easily produced from simple wood blocks or cardboard ), but there is a good hobby shopping opportunity coming up in a few days' time :  Salute 52,  courtesy of South London Warlords,  at the Excel Centre in London. 

                                 

I'm planning to go along, and looking forward to seeing the many games and traders who will be there. Looking at thhe list of games, the ones I am particularly interested to see include :

- Retired Wargamers Reloaded 'Gotterdamerung Berlin 1945' (GA06 on the Floor Plan)  -  which I gather will be nothing if not a large setup! 'Our largest game to date. May 1945 in Berlin and the final days of WW2 in the European Theatre of Operations'   Many readers will have seen their previous displays such as Carentan   and Pegasus Bridge , which have been excellent.  I note from the Salute program that they have a prime position on Saturday, very near the entrance, so should get a lot of attention!   Hoping to see my veteran gaming buddy Tony there, too..

 - Anschluss Publishing 'Defence of Tobruk 1941' ( GD04 )  Always a classy presentation from Anschluss, and interesting to see them tackling the North African theatre.  I bought their rules last year, I think (or was it the year before...? ), but have not tried them out,, as so often happens!

- Continental Wars Society  'Battle of Gurgulat' (GK12), Serb-Bulgarian War of 1885, Ralph Weaver and Co always  put on a good display and can be relied upon to find a battle you won't have heard of! Last year I was so impressed, I joined their society.

- Loughton Strike Force  'Warsaw 44'  (GA11) .  Another group who make lovely display games, I suspect a rubble-strewn urban terrain to compare and contrast with the Berlin game mentioned above. 

- Per Broden and Wyre Forest Wargamers 'The Crossing of Duna 1701' (GL09), 6mm Great Northern War, I assume they might be using 'Twilight of...' rules which Wyre Forest produce.  Their large Poltava game was a highlight at Salute in 2021  

- Wars of the Gelderland Succession 'Vauban's Wars' (GG02) - an 18th Century Imaginations Siege Game.  Having grown up with Charles Grant 'The War Game' this ticks a few boxes, and it will be  interesting to see a siege game, from the period when formal siege warfare was at its peak. 

- Yarkshire Gamer 'Battle of Mentana 1867 - Rome or Death'   Can Garibaldi capture Rome? Given my current project, this is a must, and Ken the Yarkshire Gamer  needs no introduction. On Instagram I have seen that he is using Gringo 40s figures  for this, the Garibaldini units he has painted look splendid.

 That's enough to be going on with, there are loads more games of course, I have noted about 40 I'd like to see, and I admit I have not inlcuded Fantasy or Sci-Fi offerings - there are bound to be some visually spectacular exmaples of those, even if the gaming itself is not my thing! 

Also over 140 traders are listed in the program, so plenty of shopping opportunities, to put it mildly! And hopefully a few familiar faces in the crowd and at the tables? I see that Ray from Postie's Rejects has suggested the usual Bloggers' Meet Up   at 1pm, at the big red dot on the plan below,  and I will certainly try to be there - happy to meet anyone who reads this blog!    

  

So, plenty to look forward to at the weekend, and there's a bit of face-to-face gaming in the offing next week too, so things are looking up.   Now to get busy painting those Italian buildings..  Next post will likely be reporting my day at Salute, and how footsore I feel afterwards!  Until then keep well. everyone. 

* for the benefit of non-British readers, see  Bob's Your Uncle  - I admit I didn't know anything about its origin! 

 

 

 

 

   
 

The (almost) Finished 1859 Armies

With apologies for the lack of posting recently, I wanted to wait until I had finished painting my 6mm Risorgimento armies for Italy 1859, but that took a bit longer than expected - 'real life', and all that. However, I have finally painted my way through the 'MDF pile' of the semi-flat Commission Figurines* figures I acquired at the Warfare show in November, and these combined with some  Baccus figures I had previously completed have given me ( I hope ) useable Austrian and Piedmontese 'starter' armies.    And here they are - Piedmont first : 

These are based for Neil Thomas'  19th Century Europe rules, with most units having four bases - I decided on 24 figures per line infantry unit ( 2 bases of 8 in line, and 2 bases of 4 skirmishing) and 16 figures per cavalry unit, with 8 figures in a skirmisher unit ( 2 bases of 4 ) and a single base of one gun  and 4 crew for an artillery unit.  The Piedmont army currently has (front to back of picture)  5 Line and 2 Grenadier infantry units,  2 units of Bersaglieri skirmishers,  2 line and 1 heavy Cavalry unit, and 3 artillery units.  

And if you'll excuse the slightly poor photography ( late afternoon sun a bit strong ), here are the Austrian opposition :

 

The Emperor's force comprises (again, from back to front of picture)  6 units of Line infantry, 3 of Artillery and 3 of Cuirassier cavalry. This is where the 'almost' in the title of this post comes in - having lined them up for the camera, I realised that I have omitted to include any skirmishing infantry in the army. So I need a bit more painting, of a couple of units of Grenze or Croat skirmishers. Back to the painting desk, I suppose.. 

I'm quite pleased with these, and found the painting less challenging that I expected - essentially there's no need to worry about trying to paint tiny details on the figures, because even if you could, no-one could see them at tabletop distances!  If you really insist on seeing the full horror of what I think I can get away with, here is an extreme close-up of Austrian Cuirassiers: 

I will admit I think the 'flock' I have used on the bases is probably too coarse for this scale - but again, no-one is ever going to get that close to these figures, and in the previous pictures at more normal distances, I think the basing looks good enough. I will try to improve that in future units, though, using a finer flock if possible.  The figures here are from  Commission Figurines Napoleonic range - unsurprisingly enough, Austrian Cuirassiers  ( for examples of much better-painted figures from the same ranges, see Richard's My Wargaming Habit blog ). 

 For background reading I found Solferino: The Birth of a Nation by Patrick Turnbull (1985) 

 

This was a good read and an nice introduction to the Italian campaign  of 1859, culminating in the bloody battle of Solferino and covering the engagements at Montebello and Magenta too. One of my main impressions from reading the book is that frankly the standard of generalship exhibited by all three main protagonists ( Austria, France and Italy ) left a lot to be desired - the three armies more or less 'bumped into each other' at Solferino, having encamped the night before very close together but unaware of each other!   All three were commanded by their heads of state - Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria,  Emperor Napoleon III of France, and King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont-Savoy, but none of the three were suited to command of large armies.  The author says that none of them lacked personal bravery, and would have made really good regimental commanders, but no more!    If anything, Louis Napoleon perhaps comes across as the most sympathetic and human character,  beginning his first war  with hopes of attaining 'glory' like his illustrious namesake, but being shocked and horrified by the scale of the bloodshed and suffering involved in a big battle.  Immediately after Solferino he determined to make peace, probably to his credit as a human being. Of course, we can discuss why he had not realised just what his ambition for power was getting him into during his rise to the throne, and how far out of his depth he was when later pitted against Bismarck's Prussia.

From a hobby point of view I rather like the ruritanian ineffciency of the armies, it probably puts them on a fairly level playing field and may well suit my own level of tactical and strategic skills! 

Now I just need to acquire some suitable terrain - starting from scratch rather, as this is my first essay with 6mm. There are some buildings coming to me from Timecast, I hope, next we are going to need roads, rivers, trees etc. I also need to get some Austrian skirmishers painted, as mentioned above - the Commission Figurines ACW Confederates in broad-brim hats may come in handy for those.  Once that is all in hand, we'll set 'em up and see how they do, using Neil Thomas' rules for the period.   In the meantime, there may be some gaming in other periods which haven't had a good run out for a while -watch this space.  Until then keep well, everyone. 

 * It seems that Commission Figurines website is no longer available - I am wondering if this is bad news for them and their customers?  Is anyone aware of any news about them? 

 

Still Alive - But Got Killed the Other Day

 Is 31st January too late to wish everyone a Happy New Year? I hope 2025 has started well for you all, anyway.  As may be obvious from my lack of updates, this month has been  a slightly  'Dry January' in hobby terms  ( and as a wise hobby friend said, don't try to write blog posts when you've got nothing to report ) -  but I am determined not to reach the end of a month with no updates whatsoever, especially in the run-up to what I believe may be called  the 'fiftth blogoversary' of this stream of inconsequential nonsense ( I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he did, either... ). And so, in the dying hours of this bleak midwinter month, a quick summary of recent hobby-related happenings, and a few thoughts and ideas for the future seem in order. 

I may not have run any actual games myself, but I have been lucky to have been involved in a few: many thanks to Jon Freitag, as ever, for inviting me to join in with two of his remote gaming extravaganzas. First up was his fourth iteration of the Italian Wars period battle of  Agnadello 1509; something of a nail-biting game in which Tony (MS Foy) and I as the Venetians came quite close to holding off  Mark (Jolly Broom Man) ,  Chris ( Nundanket ) and Dave ( LiverpoolDave )'s  French, partly by going against what seemed to have become the accepted wisdom of the previous three outings. A learning point from this - I think I had assumed we would lose, but if I had kept a closer eye on the scores we might have seen a chance to actually win!  Never assume.. Click on the link here for Jon's excellent report.    I did smile at Jon's writing at one point : By now, Alviano's attacks have run out of momentum - what in fact had happened was that my Heavy Cavalry  Men-At-Arms had pursued a badly-damaged French light horse unit, striking the routers from behind and rolling eleven dice against the French one - and then  I had rolled no hits with my eleven dice, and seen my brave knights slink away in disgrace! A moment to remember.  As you can see , the game was a really colourful affair, with some mighty struggles as the big pike blocks collided across the Venetians' defended ditch. 

                        

 

The second offering from Jon was earlier this week - a complete change of theme, The Gunfight at Adobe Wells Station ... yesirree, a rootin' tootin' Wild West Gunfight!   Tremendous fun was had as (by coincidence ) the former Venetians Tony and I became Pinkerton Agents, defending a stash of weapons against a gang of lairy-looking desperadoes who strongly resembled the French nobiltiy of 1509.  My character 'The Accountant' managed an initial coup by fatally drilling Chris's  'ZZ Hood' right between the eyes,  but then fell to a rain of bullets and clubbed pistols from Mark's  villainous 'Wild Bill' Briscoe.  Meanwhile Tony's  'Careful' McMinn had been anything but careful, and took a whole lotta lead from 'Daring Dave' McGinty, and the Pinkertons were unceremoniously rubbed out.  A great game, with Jon reviving his version of 'The Rules With No Name' and figures after 25 years disuse - you did a good job of remembering them, Jon!  I liked the simple card-driven activation which sometimes gave a player two or even three actions on their turn, hence allowing a deadly 'reload - aim - fire' sequence, and the use of a 'joker' card to end the turn randomly - which quite often saved characters who had got into a very tight spot, by denying their opponent the chance to finish them off! Alas, The Accountant ran out of luck in the end,  and his books are now closed.  I borrowed the following pic from Jon's blog - the moment my man went down, in a close-quarters rooftop fight..

                               

  

Chris aka 'Nundanket' has featured quite a lot in my hobby January - as well as the above we met in real life a couple of times. First was at the National Army Museum for one of their excellent Friday lunchtime talks, this time on the  Saratoga campaign of 1777.   Chris has posted a report of the talk here - note that if you can't make it in person to the talks, you can book in to watch them on-line, and well worth it they usually are.   Secondly, Chris and I were involved with  an evening of board wargaming in a London pub, playing my venerable (1983!)  Soldier King  game. Very much a 'learning the game' exercise for all concerned, but interesting, and we are arranging another try with the same group - in which we will hopefully move a bit quicker and get stuck in to some proper battles! Here is a picture (thanks again Chris!)  to give you an idea of the look of the thing 

 

So that's a summary of most of what I've been doing hobby-wise - you may have noticed that this does not ( shock, horror! ) include any painting.. Well, I have managed a few painting sessions on my 1859 Risorgimento  Piedmontese and Austrian 6mm armies, and they are 'getting there' but by no means complete, though I have been enjoying the process.  Here is a 'work in progress' sort of picture - Austrians mainly in white, Piedmontese in blue. I like the simple, semi-flat format of the Commission Figurines models, which are a mix of their Napoleonic and ACW ranges. 

on the workbench - just not often enough!

 

For the future, I have a couple of ideas  knocking around,  plus an invitation , as follows: 

D-Day Dodgers as a Mini-Campaign?

I was intrigued and inspired by a couple of posts from the always excellent Norm Smith on his Commanders website and/or  Battlefields and Warriors blog  ( and by the way, if you haven't already,  do yourself a favour and download his brilliant  2024 Christmas Newsletter ).  In these he highlighted a  piece in Matt OIrsik's 'Warning Order' free downloadable  wargaming magazine, issue no. 58, which in turn is inpsired by a very old series on 'One-Day-Campaigns' which appeared in early issues of Wargames Illustrated  back in 1987!  I remember those 1980s articles, too - quite inspiring. Norm is using the concept to set up a WW2 campaign for his 'Old School Tactical' boardgame collection, which you can read about on his site - he calls the campaign  Krosnogord 1944, and excellent it is too. I have been thinking that something similar might be a pretty good way to use my D-Day Dodgers  1943-45 Italian Campaign collection, having now painted a few units for Rapid Fire Reloaded, I need a framework for putting together game scenarios, and the 'linked maps/tables' format of the mini-campaigns suggested by Norm and Matt look like a pretty good idea. I am giving this some thought..I hope Matt won't mind too much if I show a screenshot of  part of his Warning Order article :

And of course, if you have not previously seen Warning Order, do have a look, it is an amazing piece of work and well worth supporting! 

Thirty Years War with Portable Pike and Shot ? 

I have got a bit tied up with painting figures for projects in the past few months, and it occurs I should change things up a bit and vary my routine by remembering the armies that are already painted, and could be used for actual games with very little effort.. in particular I've been thinking of my 15mm Thirty Years' War forces. I chanced upon some blog entries by Archduke Piccolo, who has tried re-fighting battles of the Thirty Years' War using Bob Cordery's  The Portable Pike and Shot Wargame - an example being his Portable White Mountain  from June 2024.  It made me think - I wonder if I could do that?  At around the same time, I noticed that Helion  have published a book about the battle of Fribourg 1644 :

 

Being a bit of a fan of Marshall Turenne ( slightly morbidly, I think I once saw the cannonball that killed him, in the Invalides museum  in Paris ), this could be a good one to try gaming, and my armies are supposed to be French and Imperialists ( OK, maybe it was Bavarians at Fribourg, but we'll overlook that! )  . The book will I assume have decent orders of battle, and they can hopefully be scaled down to the limited table and forces at my disposal - a sort of 'bathtub Fribourg', perhaps?  Actually I don't think the armies involved were all that large, at this late stage of the war, which may make it easier. So that's another book for for the wish-list - but it should be well-worth reading, Monsieur Thion being the expert on French armies of the period. 

A PBEM Seven Years War Campaign? 

Chris 'Nundanket' strikes again - he has kindly invited me to join a 'Play by Email' campaign he is planning, based on Frederick the Great's invasion of Bohemia in 1757. We talked about the idea when we met at the NAM (see above), and the discussion and some ideas batted around gave him the impetus to get started on it, I think. He has a bunch of willing generals lined up and an interesting co-operative/competitive format in mind, whereby we may be all playing Prussian commanders versus the umpire-driven or automated Austrians - it looks like it should be quite in interesting excercise. Thanks yet again, Chris, I look forward to it..  

What with getting the 1859 armies completed and hopefully a game on the table soon,  I think I have given myself plenty to be getting on with!  I've also rambled on quite long enough here, so I will call it a month and hope to come back with some actual progress in February ( which is tomorrow, of course- maybe not quite  that quickly, then!).  Meawhile I hope everyone out there is enjoying their hobby time, and until the next time keep well, everyone.   

Italian update..

All roads lead to... well, Italy at least, right now.   This is a brief update on progress with my  'Risorgimento'  project to game the Italian war of 1859 in 6mm scale. Having painted some units of infantry for both Austrian and Piedmontese armies,  I was not very satisfied with a plain 'old-school' green basing system. So I acquired some Baccus 'Basing Medium' and some green scatter material, and had another go at the bases. This has been a bit more successful: 

In the Flocking Tray.. 

 

I used a simplified version of the suggested method from the Baccus website : 

-  apply PVA glue to the whole base and sprinkle over  the basing medium

-  paint the whole textured base with a brown ( I used artists' Burnt Umber ) paint

-  apply PVA in irregular 'splodges' over the base, do not cover the whole base 

- sprinkle over the green scatter material, which will stick to the PVA but not the entire base

 Et voila,  all done.  I am reasonably happy with the result, it has obscured  the 'plinth' effect of the figure strip bases, which was the main aim.  I found that as I progressed through the units, I was gradually  applying less green scatter material and allowing  larger areas of brown to show through, which gave a quite pleasing variation in colours.

The Baccus site suggests dry-brushing a couple of levels of highlights on top of the brown paint before applying the scatter, I was too lazy to do that but may try it next time  ( see Chris 'Nundanket's recent post on Punic Wars elephants, showing his use of the Baccus method, which looks pretty good ). 

Encouraged with this progress, I am making plans to acquire some more troops. I am starting with units organised as specified in Neil Thomas'  Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe,  whose rules suggest armies of 10 units per side for a basic game - that seems a good starting point.  I now have 4 units of Infantry for each side, and  I already have both Austrian and Piedmontese field artillery packs from Baccus (4 guns each).  Now I need some more infantry and of course, cavalry, as well as some elite infantry units such as Austrian Jagers and Piedmontese Grenadiers and Bersaglieri. 

To find the additional recruits, I am going to try using the interesting MDF 'semi-flat' 6mm figures from Commission Figurines, who have ranges of Napoleonic and ACW troops which I think might be fairly easily employed with 'paint conversion'.and a little creative trimming here and there . As mentioned in a previous post, I happen to already have some of their ACW infantry in slouch hats, which I suspect will do for Bersaglieri and Jagers.  Having browsed their catalogue, I think Napoleonic Infantry in greatcoats may become Piedmontese Line Infantry, French 'Old Guard'  in tall 'busby' stand in for Piedmont Grenadiers,  and ACW cavalry in Kepi for Piedmontese light cavalry, for example. All  good fun!    You may be wondering why do this rather than just ordering from Baccus 'Risorgimento' range which would probably cover all bases - well, it's really just personal preference, I really like the quite stylised look of the MDF figures, so I thought it would be worth a try to use them.  And did I mention that a pack of 96 infantry or 36 cavalry retails for £2.00?

Now, having recruited armies, they are going to need some terrain :  the  Hexon terrain that I have used for all games so far is a little 'green' for Italy, to my mind ( bear in mind it will be used for both and my WW2 'D-Day Dodgers' ),  so I am thinking about adding some of their 'desert transition' hexes into the mix, which will add a bit more brown/sand colour to the terrain and make it a bit less uniform. The other major item required is going to be buildings, I think - what did an  Italian village of 1860 ( or 1944, come to think  of it actually ) look like?  I am starting to think about that. Looking at listings for traders at The Other Partizan this month, I didn't find very much - Baccus have a 6mm scale Spanish farm, which might do,  and  Battlescale/Pendraken some basic rendered houses,  but neither had actually brought any of the items I might have wanted to the show.  I reckon it might be quite easy to make my own buildings, especially for 6mm scale, from odds and ends of wood blocks and/or cardboard. For inspiration, at a recent exhibition at Gainsborough House Gallery in Sudbury I saw a couple of  paintings of 'Italian Landscape'  by Cedric Morris : 

 

Perhaps a little more 'warm South' than the 1860 theatre of  war, but with a bit of creative license they might make good models for my, err,  models(!).  I am also starting to look at the photos in various books about the WW2 Italian campaign ( the Images of War series being very useful here), to get an idea of typical buldings and landscapes.  Having moved into 6mm scale, of course I have to start from scratch with trees, walls, hedges  etc etc too.. lots to think about, at least they should be small, and hopefully cheap! 

 Finally I have some background reading in the form of this :

 

Acquired from Naval and Miltary Press, this is a facsimile of a 19th Century account of the campaign by the splendidly-named Colonel H.C. Wylly,  CB 'late the Sherwood Foresters, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regimemt'  in a nice big A4 paperback format. I am going to try to read this with a decent map of Northern Italy to hand at all times.. 

All the above is plenty to be going on with, quite apart from other projects which are in theory still ongoing - must paint some more 7YW French, for example!  I'm sure I'm not alone in having probably got too many projects I'd ideally like to be progressing with. 

So there we are - not massive progress, but I am at least doing some thinking and have some reasonable ideas, I think.   Next step should be expand the armies to at least have Neil Thomas' basic suggested forces - let's see how we get on with the MDF figures, should be interesting.Now it's already Halloween, the clocks have gone back, and where did October go? ( at least I managed 5 blog posts this month - pretty good by my lights!).  On into winter we go,  nothing else to do wih those dark evenings but paint, read and game?  And think of 'Sunny Italy', perhaps?

Until the next time, keep well, everyone.