Monmouth Play Test #2

Last Friday a bunch of us got together to help me play test my scenario for the upcoming Huzzah! convention. The game is a slight 'what if' scenario asking what if Lee's initial attack had been formed from volunteer regiments instead of just the partial regiments required by Washington's order to only employ volunteer soldiers (each soldier having to volunteer personally). This was the second test of the scenario, and although I've resolve the order of arrival and unit locations to make for a better game while still remaining historically viable, I still need to do some fine tuning on the unit sizes. My two-stand basing system for AWI obfuscates the disparity of unit size a bit too much when using the actual unit sizes. I may need to round unit sizes up/down a little to alleviate this issue. All in all, I can still use a historical OB, but will adjust sizes to the nearest whole base number to avoid confusion and allow the game to run smoother.

On an up side, I have finally resolved what was a nagging problem with the tablet interface where the tablets would occasionally freeze. We played about 20 turns with four tablets and had zero freezes. I think I finally have that one licked!

Ancients Campaign Game - The Battle of Adrianapolis

Last Saturday the gang got together to fight the second battle of our campaign - the battle of Adrianapolis. This was Greece's turn to strike back at the Levant invaders in Greece. Earl (pictured left) is the Grecian 2iC and it was his birthday. For his birthday wish he wished for a single roll of twelve (boxcars) but he, Bob and Mike did a touch better than that, scratching out a hard fought win against the Levantian force, which employs a Roman-model army. Superior in army strength 12 points to 10 at the start of the battle, in the end it came down to the last unit removed to decide it. With both armies on the brink of collapse, Greece eliminated the last Levantian unit first and won the battle. I didn't play, but was a biased bystander, advising the Greek commanders.

Mike took a page out of the Too Fat Lardies play book, and marked his casualties with skull beads. Very posh! I have to get me some of those.

Moderns at Mark D's

Last Friday, Bob, Ralph and I travelled up to Mark D's place to play test his game for the upcoming Huzzah! convention in Portland, ME. The game is an adaptation of one of the recent Bolt Action tournament scenarios. Mark has adapted it for his Bolt Action Moderns adaptation. Mark and I played the insurgents, Ralph and Bob played the French led establishment forces.

With only four players Mark randomly selected partial commands for each side. Both sides ended up with a lot of the vehicles and armor and light on infantry. The French side got the worst of this with only one full squad of grunts, but all the toys: Cobra helicopter, two armored cars and two machine gun trucks. They also got a mortar and an HQ squad.

We received a technical with an auto-cannon on it. A second towed auto cannon, two heavy MGs and five squads of infantry.

This game was fun, fast paced and lots of stuff got 'blown up'. The infantry on both sides have plenty of firepower to deal with the vehicles. In the end the game was won by the French thanks to a heroic charge by their Lieutenant in the last turn. Somehow he survived taking incoming fire from no less than six of our squads/weapons. Hollywood material for sure! Look for Mark's game at Huzzah! - it's going to be a good one.

Northern Conspiracy 2016 Symposium

Last Friday night our club got together for our semi-annual symposium. This is the one night a year that we put down the figures and dice, and have presentations on various subjects. Each time we do this it's a rewarding evening. This year was no exception.

We started off with a presentation from Earl's father. Mr. Richards gave us a wonderful talk about his military service during World War II in the Navy Armed Guard. Serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific, Mr. Richards told us numerous excellent stories about his service, both combat and non-combat related.

Mike followed with a presentation on the rise and fall of Mare Nostrum - the Roman domination of the Mediterranean ocean. Mike's discussion compared the popular conclusions about the fall of Rome to a more modern interpretation. After seeing Mike's presentation I'm inclined to side with his conclusion that the more modern studies may have it right.

Following Mike all of the members participated in a round table discussion about military service, both personal experiences as well as several members discussing family members' service.  John brought in reconnaissance photos his father took while flying B-24s in Europe as well as a silk 'escape' map which was something I've never seen in person, even in a museum, let alone be able to handle. Ralph and Ed told stories about being in armour between Vietnam and the Cold War, Phil discussed his Grandfather's service in WWI and I told a couple of stories about my Grandfather's adventurers being a 'scrounge' when not on active duty.

On a personal note, sorry about the lack of posts lately. I was down with pneumonia for 3 weeks. I'm on the mend now and hopefully back to normal!

Carthaginian Medium Infantry

These are two units of Carthaginian medium infantry, made up of some left-over figures from my dead lead box. They are based up as peltasts or other such medium infantry. In Hanibal at the Gates, these will most likely be used as soldiers, but could also be pressed into service as rankers. These two units are meant to flank my red Carthaginian hoplite phalanx, one stand of which I recently posted in this post. It's the right unit in the blog post.

The figures are Old Glory. The rear figures from their medium Carthaginian infantry pack and the front skirmishing figures from their Italian medium infantry pack. The latter were selected based on their helmets, two of which were modified by removing the plumes. The shields are a mix of what comes with each bag of figures as well as some characteristic Carthaginian bronze shields from my bits box. Next up on the painting table are two stands of Roman principes to complete my white legion.

More Ancients Re-Basing

I'm continuing to re-base my 28mm ancients from DBA/FOG to the dedicated basing of Hanibal at the Gates. These are five more stands re-based.








The first unit is my Campanian hoplites. These were originally painted in January, 2014. Now re-based they represent three hoplite stands in HATG. The right-most base includes three figures painted last month to make the number of figures per stand work.

The final two stands of Numidian infantry include a musician, painted back in January but never photographed. Re-basing from three to five figures per stand allows these two stands to be used as peltasts or medium infantry - soldiers or rankers in HATG terms.

Northern Conspiracy Game Night - March 2016

Last Friday our club got together for our monthly game night. Of the three games offered, I chose to play in Ed's British Colonial game using his home-brew rules based loosely on Gaslight and Sword and the Flame. Ed calls them Gasflame. 

Ed organizes his games to a very high level. Each command arrives in it's own box and each unit has a card with unit statistics, firing factors and a photo of the figures. Hard to get confused with play aids like that!

On the native side was Don, Paul and myself. For the British, Mike, Dave and Ralph. The scenario called for the capturing of a central hill. With wild men armed mostly with swords and spears, the native plan was pretty simple - CHARGE!

The British did a good job of holding us off. Dave obliterated the first native unit that crested the target hill. Ralph did similarly to my first infantry charge on his cavalry. Things settled down a little after that, but over time the British did more damage than the natives, and nobody held the hill. Win for the British empire. The sun will not set on non-British land this day.

 

The second games was Michael's pirate game, complete with a shipwreck and very nicely painted native islanders. More photos of Mike's game can be seen on his gallery here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127078331@N07/albums/72157663495920803/with/25426098840/

The third game was Dick's 6mm Napoleonic game, with great looking battle lines due to the high number of 6mm figures per unit.