Renaissance Game (2)

Last  Friday night we got together at my Uncle's house to play test a Renaissance game that he'll be running at this month's club game night. The game uses Ralph's own rules 'Nexus' which can be downloaded from his website, Cruel Old Campaigners (look in the "War Game Rules" section). The game is set in the wars of religion period and pits a larger French/Spanish force against a smaller, but higher quality defending Imperialist force using Ralph's beautiful figures and terrain. We got several fun turns in and this will be a fun game to play at game night. I'm looking forward to it!

Western Gunfight Banditos - TNT Template

Here is the completed Resporado Gang figures. They've been tinted with a wash, based and flocked. Ready to start gunning down anyone in between them and the tequila!

Also for Saturday's game I made up a Gatling Gun / TNT template at Gordon's request. This is made to the exact size of the template in the "Fistful of Lead" rule book.

Western Gunfight Banditos - WIP

These are the work progress (WIP) shots of my Mexican 'banditos' for a western gunfight skirmish game that Adler Hobby will be having for their upcoming anniversary.  So far these are just block painted. After they dry overnight I'll gloss coat them and give them a good sepia tone wash. Once that is dry i can go over the figures and do final highlighting and basing. Hopefully I'll get it all done by Saturday since that is when the game is!

 I'm calling my squad the "Reposado Gang" which seems appropriate considering their origins. These two figures are the possible squad leaders. On the left the best fighter of the bunch wields two pistols so is appropriately named "Six Gun Sancho". On the right is "Hacienda Hosé". Hosé is wealthy and cunning. He isn't in it for the loot, he's in it for the adventure.

 Next up are "Tequila Thomas" on the left and "Pancho Pete" on the right. Pete is a dead-eye shot and Hacienda Hosé's right-hand man. Pete keeps Hosé out of trouble....most of the time.

Rustled up from the local bar are the last hands in the crew. I haven't thought of clever names for them yet. By the time I've finished painting them I'll have something fun to say about them.

600 Point FOW Tourney at Adler Hobby

Saturday I played in a small 600-point early war Flames of War tournament that is part of the New England regional FOW qualifier series. The series has many New England stores hosting a day of gaming at their store. Saturday was Adler Hobby's turn. I'm not much of a competitive gamer, but I thought I'd show up to support the store and the series. I played 600 points worth of my Australian kangaroo tanks. Not much of a 'tournament' list, but it's what I had available. There were four of us playing, myself and 3 visitors from other areas. My first opponent was Phil (shown above) playing Italian armor. Phil's nine M13/40 tanks made short work of my three M13/40 tanks and 5 M11/39 tanks and 3 Bren carriers.  Phil was the eventual tournament winner.

My second opponent was Mike playing French armor comprised of three Somua S-35 tanks and four Hotchkiss H-39 long gun tanks. The Soumua were nigh-impossible for my tanks to kill but I did manage to kill one and one Hotchkiss, but other than that Mike made easy work of my lighter tanks. It didn't help that by turn three nine of my 11 combat vehicles were bogged down. Yes I rolled 9 of 11 bog rolls of a '1' by turn 3. Phil was gracious about my bad luck and was the eventual winner of the sportsman award, which he deserved for listening to my complaints about bad dice for a whole game without showing any visible sign of irritation. I'm sure I wasn't very pleasant to be around although I did try to put on my best manners during the bad dice run.

My last game was against Temis (sorry for clipping your face in the photo!). Temis played British infantry with two platoons of 2 pounder AT guns, a platoon of A11 Matilda infantry tanks and a platoon of infantry. Since nothing I had could even scratch the paint on a Matilda I attempted to kill everything else in Temis' list. I managed to destroy the infantry platoon and one platoon of AT guns, but my assault on the final platoon of AT guns went horribly wrong with one of my final 2 tanks bogging to basically end the game with a loss.

All three visitors for the tournament were great guys to game with. They all had a MUCH firmer grasp on the rules than I did and were helpful and understanding in bringing me up to speed on when I didn't know the rules well enough. I would like to thank all of them for their great sportsmanship. I went 0-3 for the day, which is about what I expected from my 'fun to play' kangaroo tank list. Mostly I think I'm more suited to casual fun games than tournament games. I'm not sure I'll ever be the 'qualify for the nationals' type of guy.

ACW Naval Game

My friend George had a few of us over for the inaugural game in his new wargaming 'clubhouse' - a purpose built shed for wargaming. This game was specifically for those people who helped George set up the shed - wiring, insulating, adding storage lofts, etc. The game was the first play test in what I hope is many to come ACW naval games using a set of fast play rules that George has created. The rules don't as of yet have a name, but one suggestion was "Broadsides, Valor and Death", abbreviated "BVD".

The game functions on a grid system and allows for movement between grid intersection points using diagonal or orthogonal movement. Combat allows for several classes of ACW ships: wooden, 'tin' clad and ironclad. There are many small nuances that make it a fun game...sort of a DBA for ACW naval. The rules were easy to play and for a first play had surprisingly few problems. With some tweaks I think they'll provide us many fun games in the future.

The scenario required the union players: George, Ed and myself press through a blocking Confederate force of Charlie, Mike and Ralph. The Confederates controlled some blocking forts on a set of river islands. George spear headed the Union attack past the forts and blocking Confederate ships. Although this proved disastrous for his ships, it did cause the Confederates to pull back a large portion of their ships to defend their moored boats. The remaining advance Confederate boats slugged it out with the Union but eventually things turned  and the Union were able to press past the forts and whittle down the Confederate navy. The victory was quite Pyrrhic with the Confederates losing 9 ships, but the Union only having their two weakest wooden boats left at the end of the battle. All in all everyone had a great time and it was a perfect way to break in George's new clubhouse. 

2nd Punic War FOG Campaign (4)

Last night my friends Charlie (Hannibal in the campaign, left in the photo) and Mike (Mars in the campaign, right in the photo) and I got together to do the campaign movement in our ongoing 2nd Punic War FOG campaign. My army in Africa had all of Eastern Numidia revolt on it which Carthage took advantage of by re-capturing most of if for themselves. It also didn't take long for Charlie to gobble up some more of my precious Italian northern provinces with his armies that retreated from our last battle. In order to hopefully block further southern advances I set two armies across the 'calf' of Italy hoping to draw Hannibal into a disadvantageous battle. Charlie did his part attacking my army in Terventum with Hannibal's army, but alas Titus Longus failed to march to the battle leaving me with 'only' a fair fight against Hannibal's army. Considering the last battle was close fought with a 20% troop advantage, I'm thinking this next battle will be a tough one.

We'll try to get together a group of gamers soon to play out the FOG game. It should be another good game with both armies bringing full 800-point FOG armies to the table top and each having two additional units of local troops to add to their forces. 

Brother Against Brother Jingal Cannister Templates

A while back I made some Brother Against Brother artillery canister templates for my friend Byron (see here). Byron asked me to make some half-sized templates for jingal cannister shot. Pictured to the left is what I came up with. I believe Byron is going to be using these in the game he's running at Historicon: F-280 The Devil Soldier – China, 1862. For more info you can read the full game description on page 10 of the Historicon PEL.

Fistful of Lead - Old West Gun Fight

Due to an electrical in my new (used) RV I had to cut my trip short this week. Having Friday off I decided to attempt to salvage the end of the week by stopping by Adler Hobby for a game. Since there were four of us we decided to play a game of Fistful of Lead which is a quick-play Old West Gunfight game.

Gordon is planning a big game of this at the end of the month so this was a learning game for Adam and I. Gordon and Chris already knew the game very well. Each side took half a squad of six. I used some ACW skirmish figures I had for Brother against Brother and Gordon used three of his his Buffalo soldiers. Facing us were Adam's gunfighters and Chris used three Confederate Zouaves that I lent him. Chris and Adam's job was to get away with the gold from the bank (represented by white glass beads). As you can see from the photos below they did very well. Chris placed a Zouave on the top of the bank who commanded the entire area and shot Gordon and I dead almost to a man single handedly. Give that 'reb a double share of the loot!

Mid-Atlantic Air Museum

Lori and I visited the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum today on our vacation in Pennsylvania. This museum has both static and flying models in its collection. In their hangar is their collection of flying aircraft. Our tour guide was very well informed and was able to answer all our questions which made our visit very enjoyable - more than worth the $6.00 admission fee. The collection includes a Grumman Avenger, B-25 Mitchell bomber and the pride of their collection is their current restoration project a P-61B Black Widow (bottom right). When finished, this will be the only flying example of this night fighter which entered service at the conclusion of WWII.

The guided tour offered unprecedented access to the aircraft in the collection. At one point we were standing inside the open bomb bay doors of the B-25! We were careful not to touch anything, but photography was allowed from any distance and angle. I highly recommend visiting the museum if you find yourself in the Reading, PA area with a couple hours of free time on your hands.

2nd Punic War FOG Campaign (3)

Last Friday night we got together to finish the The Battle of Heraclea in our 2nd Punic War FOG campaign. Pictured to the left is my friend Michael who joined us for the game as a Carthaginian general to help bolster their ranks with Charlie having another commitment. Ed took over as Hannibal since he was at the first evening's game.

We continued where we left off the previous night. On the right side of the center one unit of African spearmen routed with Romans in pursuit. A few turns later the Thurophoroi in the rough lost to a combined attack from Italian medium infantry supported by a unit of Triarii. The Carthaginian cavalry that was sandwiched also broke early in the game.

Later on a unit of African spearmen and a unit or Roman Hastati mutually broke and on the right the final unit of Roman heavy cavalry was gored by superior Spanish cavalry.  Behind the lines the large Numidian cavalry unit was rallied at the expense of a small Spanish cavalry unit that left the battlefield. Somewhere in there another Roman Hastati unit broke to bring the total to four for the game.

Over the next few turns some Carthaginian units rallied from broken to edge away from their army break point. The Carthaginian spear in the center was continuing to advance towards the roman camp with the Roman units that eliminated the cavalry in pursuit. With the evening waning and the game losing momentum the game was called by Mike the GM as a marginal Roman victory.