NROW Play Test at Charlie's

Last Friday we got together to play another game of Napoleon's Rules of War at Charlie's place. On the menu a test with French against Spanish and British as a change of pace over the Austrians that have been facing off against the French in recent play tests. New rules to try were cavalry react and counter-charge. The former needs a few tweaks, but the latter seemed spot on and worked nicely.

Having been French a lot lately the random draw chose French for me again. I partnered up with Rob, Ralph and Earl. Opposite us were Bob, Robert and Mark. I took up the attack on the right side. My attack went reasonably well in the center, but on the right Mark's counter-charging cavalry sent my infantry running to the rear in droves. When we stopped the battle was still in question, but the French had made significant progress against the Allied center with the guard about to go in for an attempt on a coup-de-gras attack.

Photos for your enjoyment, and a video at the bottom:

X-Wing 2.0 First Games

Last Friday five of us got together to try out Star Wars X-Wing 2.0. It was a fun game with a lot to learn and many mistakes to make. There were dice thrown, asteroids crashed into an much mayhem. I ran a Rebel list with two B-wings, an X-wing and a Y-wing with an ion cannon turret. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but with four ships, two of which were B-wings with hull upgrade, I had a lot of health to lose. The list worked well and was durable although I need to learn not to crash my X-wings on asteroids when they have 1 hull remaining....doh!

Photos below of the fun had by all.

My homage to Thrawn and his X-wing videos on Youtube:

Northern Conspiracy February 2019 Game Night

Last Friday the club got together for it's February game night. I played in Ralph's 30 Years War Nexus game which I play tested previously. I chose to be on the opposite side to see how the other half lived.

This was a great game and went down to the wire ending up in virtually a draw. The Spanish tercios are juggernauts as they should be and the Imperialists played them very well. Our plan to hold in the center and win on the flanks, eventually started to work, but a touch late as the Spanish tercios mostly had their way with our new model pike blocks. Lucky for us Bob and Mark brought their flanks into order just in time. Fun game and the rules seem to be coming along nicely.

Phil ran a well attended and raucous WWII air-to-air game which everyone seemed to have fun playing.

Ed M. and Kevin had a couple of jousts using Ed's jousting rules.

A big thanks to all three game hosts.

Nexus Play Test

This past Friday my uncle had us over for a play test of the latest version of his 30 Years War rules, Nexus. These were the original source for his Ancient's rules, Hannibal at the Gates. Now that the latter have reached their 2nd edition, some of the lessons learned have been brought back to Nexus. This play test was to give them all a ringing out.

I played opposite Charlie who had a nice combined arms force of Swedish-model infantry, light artillery and battle cavalry. My command was similarly comprised of all combined arms, but my European standard pike were outnumbered 2:1 and outclassed. My cavalry was also at a disadvantage. My guns however, were excellent. Covering my flank was Ed with a fine selection of troops including some elite cavalry and large Tercios of pike, so no worries there, I could focus on Charlie's threats.

I sent my aggressive Croat cavalry out..er...aggressively. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Unfortunately the latter was mostly true. They took out some of Charlie's auxiliary troops, but other than that mostly just blew themselves up on Charlie's battle cavalry. My superior guns were also mediocre in their effectiveness. No fault of the guns, blame the operator.

Stripped of all the chaff, it was time to press with my pike. With Charlie's superior firepower, getting stuck in was my only real option. Unfortunately in the one turn I had to approach his infantry, Charlie scored seven (7) hits on one round of fire. That pretty much ended it on our flank. Lucky for the Catholics, the opposite flank was going equally poorly for the Protestants, evening out my misfortune. As the game drew to a conclusion the battle lines were in a classic 'pinwheel of death' with the outcome to be decided.

I expect that you'll be seeing more Nexus game play here on the blog throughout the upcoming year.

Tobacco Factory Game #2

Last Friday at the Northern Conspiracy's January game night I hosted a re-run of my Salerno Tobacco Factory game from last year's Operation Overlord Game day.

We had a light turnout for January, possibly due to incoming inclement weather. I ended up with six players for my game including several veteran Iron Cross players, so the game ran smoothly.

Kevin, Charlie and Ralph were the British whle Chris, Dick and Byron played the Germans.

Both sides planned aggressive advances into the key buildings that would dictate control of the complex. Early on Byron's listening post troops intercepted Charlie's infantry as the attempted to charge into the empty buildings. Byron's fire was telling forcing Charlie's troops to halt, slowing down their capture of the key buildings. Opposite Charlie, Chris' troops successfully occupied the central structures, only to be eliminated later in the game by concentrated British infantry and machine gun fire.

As the game developed concentrated fire from the German SdKfz 222 and Hetzer forced back the British 'Honey' Stuart, but failed to eliminate it. Mortars on each side ranged in but failed to bring home heavy casualties. AT guns on both sides commanded the southern areas of the battlefield while the armor avoided them to the north.

As we ran out of time the Germans were in possession of the central buildings, but had suffered significantly more casualties than the British in doing so. This was due to the cost of the attack as well as the excellent rallying from Kevin the British commander. Mainly a draw, the game could have used another hour to play to conclusion.

Apologies to Greg, Mike, Michael and Dick for not getting any photographs of their Saga games. I was too overwhelmed running my own game.

First Game of 2019

Last Friday my friend Charlie had a bunch of us up to his gaming loft for another game of Napoleon's Rules of War. We played a historical battle with a lot of woods to give his new terrain rules a good shaking out. This was a great night of gaming and all the new rules worked the treat.

I had a great night assaulting the Austrian lines with my elite regiment of French while Bob and Charlie bore the brunt of the Austrian's counter attacks and artillery fire. It's always better when your friends take the hits that should be coming to you!  In the end the French had a majority of the Austrian's hill, but paid a huge price for it with the outcome still up in the air. Great way to start off a new year of gaming!