Hot Lead 2026

 It was March, which meant that it was time for my annual pilgramidge to Stratford for Hot Lead. For a change, I had preregistered for my games, which made things super smooth in terms of entry and for not having to fight the crowd to pick my first game.

Speaking of which, my first game was the Battle of Kernstown (ACW), which was Jackson's first independant battle. The rules were Two Fat Lardies' They Couldn't Hit An Elephant, which I had not played before, but is similar enough to many of their other games. The Union army was severely hampered by command limitations and inferior troops, but we (I was a Union commander) managed to wreck the Confederate's plans with a reckless but genius placement of our cavalry brigade.

After a couple of turns. The hands are actually the Union cavalry commander working his brigade to the flank and rear of the Confederates occupying Kernstown. I'm in the lower right marching to the other Confederate flank.

Union troops capture Kernstown and prepare to defend it against the Confederates to the upper left.

The Confederates moved quickly to capture Kernstown. But the Union cavalry deployed on their flank and moved to threaten them from the rear. This threat diverted a significant part of the Confederate centre to deal with them, which in turn let a Union division to evict the Confederates from Kernstown and set up to confront the rest of the Confederate centre. Meanwhile, I was on the Union right doing a long march to occupy the hills on the flank of the Confederates.

I've reached my destination and start a bruising counterbattery.

At this point, the Union artillery started to pound Confederate centre from three directions. This was basically the rest of the game. My thanks to Brian for running an excellent scenario and game.

The Confederate artillery is getting pounded from three directions.

With nothing left in Confederate centre, the Union apply the coup de grace by advancing up the hill unopposed.

Next up was a game of General d'Armee set in the first day of the battle of Lipzeig in 1813. I like these rules but unfortunately, we barely got going before we had to pack up. The figures were beautifully painted 28mm.

The third game was the Mystery Game. It turned out to be Muskets and Tomahawks set in the 7 Years war. I was commanding a couple of units of Huron defending their village. One of my units were outside of the village and played a huge role in its defense, starting with a lucky but effective volley to drive off a unit of British militia and then launching a devastating attack from the woods on a unit of British lights. After 3 turns, they were wiped out.

The British forcing their way into the village. My warriors are to the lower left returning from having finished off some British light infantry. I also have a unit of lower grade warriors in the village defending it (but not very well).

Despite what seems to be small movement values, the game moved along at a good clip. It was too bad that we were slow starting the game and therefore, couldn't finish it. My thanks to David for running this interesting game.

I went in looking to add to my 15mm Zulu armies. I found a couple of packs of Confederates that I will repurpose into irregular British auxillaries and, because they were cheap and why not, a bunch of Dervish and Egyptions.