February Game Night 2012

Last night I attend our monthly game night. I played in my friend Ed's late renaissance skirmish game which used his homemade rule set that he's been continuously improving. This game featured Polish with German mercenaries played by my friends Earl (just off camera), Ralph and Byron (shown below right photo). Onlooker Charlie observes the table from behind. I played on the Cossack side with Mike (pictured below left photo) and Dave (not shown).

This was a tough game for the Cossacks. The Poles had a good plan and swift cavalry advances gobbled up many extra 'opportunity points' giving them some extra advantage cards early. When the Polish musketeers and dragoons came within range they surgically picked off our officers with uncanny precision leaving the Cossack units to fight under lesser leadership across the board. Our biggest problem was a solid musketeer line in the center which we never did answer. When the game was called the terrain victory points were evenly split, but it was only a matter of a turn or two before the Cossack army would have been swept from the field.

This game featured beautiful figures, nice terrain and Ed's rule set which is easy to understand. If Ed will forgive my comparing it to other rules, it has a similar 'feel' to the Brother against Brother ACW skirmish rules that many of us in the club like very much. Of course Ed's rules use different mechanics and have Renaissance-specific rules and mechanisms.

There were two other great games run. Phil ran a 15mm Fire & Fury ACW game using the original Fire & Fury rules.

Andre ran his computer-moderated age of sail game using Clear for Action rules.