Showing posts with label dining room table. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dining room table. Show all posts

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Two Battles


As I mentioned in my previous entry, my son William was in town for a visit, and we played two games with the 40mm home cast soldier collection.  While these figures are ordinarily used for the Not Quite Seven Years War, a long-running conflict with Schoeffen-Buschhagen on one side and North Polenburg on the other (along with some long-standing traditional allies on each part), most of the forces resident here are traditionally allied, and most of the enemy forces reside elsewhere.  We've established the the NQSYW takes place in the 1750s, so when we are at home and restricted to our own collections, we usually set the scenarios in a more roughly sketched out earlier conflict, the War of the Western League, sometime in the 1740s.  This involves the League (consisting of Schluesselbrett, Hesse-Hattemstadt, and Saxe-Weilenz) against the Alliance (consisting of Schoeffen-Buschhagen, the League of Free Cities, particularly Wiegenburg, and Wachovia).  

All of which is merely intended to say that the narrative behind these games is a bit thin...


A Regional Map of the Seat of the Conflict

In deciding on the day's gaming agenda, William expressed a desire to see his Wiegenburgers on the table, and agreed to give A Gentleman's War (AGW) a try, so we tried using the random army generation table to put out seven units per side, rolled from the main force chart.  He ended up with four line infantry, a light infantry, and two guns, and I ended up with four line infantry, a light infantry, a heavy cavalry, and a light cavalry.  In trying to decide what that meant to the narrative, we concluded that the Alliance army was protecting a siege train moving into position, and that their cavalry was elsewhere, while the League army represented an advance guard which had force-marched and outrun its artillery, and was attempting to deliver a hasty attack to prevent the opening of the siege. (Of some unnamed city...)

The first battle: Attempt to Prevent a Siege; League on the right; Alliance to the left

After the field maneuver game over the Memorial Day weekend, I decided that I would work up a dedicated ground cloth for the table well, three feet by five feet.  I have been a little short on time since I bought it, though, and we cut it to size just before the game.  Its color is pretty similar to the Cigar Box Battles plain mat I used for that previous game, and I thought the cloth roads needed a little more contrast, so I cut some new ones as we were setting up.  I'm not sure about this color either; more experimentation is in order.

At any rate, we put our a fairly generic field and rolled for choice of sides.  William chose the left side in the picture above, and that left me with a difficult task.  Maneuver room to make use of my cavalry was limited, and the walls (as will be seen) provided significant protection for his forces.  

Alliance troops await the attack

Schluesselbrett infantry with some Saxe-Weilenz jaegers on the League right

The League left wing; with the purple cavalry standing in as Saxe-Weilenz light dragoons
 I decided that the only chance I had was to jump out with my light infantry and attempt to occupy the woods at the left of the Alliance army.  I got off to a good start with a high movement roll, but the activation cards did not favor me, and the Alliance light troops occupied the woods first.  My jaegers were quickly shot to pieces.

Hesse-Hattemstadt infantry attacks on the left

An attack by the line infantry to the left also bogged down, and, as can be seen in the picture above, the Alliance forces were able to anchor their right flank on the woods beyond the wall position, leaving no opening for any threat by my cavalry.

So, I admitted defeat and withdrew.  Since it was still early, we agreed to reset for another game.  Having decided that the narrative of the first game was an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the siege, clearly the siege was now in progress.  William cleared the troops from the table while I went to dig in the boxes of siege gear in the basement (as one does, William noted) and came back with an artillery emplacement, a couple of mortars, and some trench sections.  We kept basically the same armies, save that I added a gun to the League, and set the table up so that we were fighting down the length.  We decided that the League had to destroy two objectives, the mortar emplacement, and the supply magazine.  Of the Alliance troops, only two started on the table, and we agreed that a face card could be used to enter the next reinforcing unit, as the Alliance army gathered from the lines of circumvallation.  The League troops would enter from the far end of the table. (See below)

The objectives; guns and the supply magazine/headquarters




League columns marching on; showing overall set-up

This turned out to be a much more interesting game, and the situation was uncertain for a long time.
William noted that the rules are very swing-y, which is probably an intended design feature.

At any rate, he was turning up face cards at a good clip early on, so that my initial advantage in numbers didn't last long.  The League cavalry had one shining moment when they overran an Alliance artillery unit (after passing the morale test from the pointblank canister fire) and went on to disperse the siege gunners and engineers.

Hesse-Hattemstadt dragoons ride down the gunners...

...and rides on to spike the mortars.
The Alliance started with one gun defending the magazine initially, and a lucky sequence of activation cards allowed them to turn the gun and finish off the dragoons as they started across the field toward the magazine.

With the cavalry gone, I attempted to bring up two infantry regiments in columns screened by the Saxe-Weilenze jaegers to attack the magazine.

The Wiegenburg infantry was mostly in position by the time the attackers arrive


Wachovian "Wilderin" light infantry arrive in the nick of time


I suspected that attacking into the muzzle of the cannon was going to be difficult, but it got worse as Wachovian reinforcements arrived for the Alliance.  My lights were split to screen against two threats, and were shot up again.

So, the attack on the right flank stalled.

On the left, the Schluesselbrett infantry did better against the Allies.  We were starting to roll up the Alliance flank, which was alarming to the Allied commander, though a long way from the critical magazine.  
Red coated Schluesselbrett infantry in their final attack on the Wiegenburgers

With a final brave effort, though, the Wiegenburger foot managed to reorient to meet the threat, and broke the Schluesselbrett attack.  With that, 50% of my units were gone and those remaining were at much reduced strength, and the retreat was sounded yet again.  It was probably just as well, as the players needed to make some dinner and clear the table in order to serve it.  Having a gaming table doubling as a dining room table does have a few disadvantages, and a 40mm game is too tall to put the table topper back on with the game in progress.

William agreed that the rules were fun.  I hope soon to be able to run a game for some people who have played before so that we can throw in a few more complications such as the unit distinctions and perhaps some cameo roles.












Tuesday, July 2, 2019

A Pair of Games (preliminary)


These are exciting times in the Dean family.  Senior son (and Prince Palatine of Wachovia) is getting married on Saturday, and the family is converging on this area.  Younger son William arrived in town over the weekend, and we were able to get in a couple of games yesterday.  

William expressed a desire to command his NQSYW army of Wiegenburg, which he hadn’t been able to do for a couple of years, so we set up a quick scenario using  A Gentleman’s War.  In the first, we used the random army generation system, and decided that this looked like a hasty attack on the main body of an army while its cavalry was occupied elsewhere. So we agreed that the army of the Western League was attempting to prevent the Allies from starting a siege.  Due to the random factors, I ended up with a nearly hopeless attack on a strong position and I quickly reached the agreed  army breakpoint and declared a withdrawal.

William commanding the Allies
 Since it was still early, we reset the table and tried again.  Following on in the narrative, I pulled out some of the stock of siege materials, and declared that the League was now making an attack to attempt to break the siege in progress.  My objective was to cross the table and destroy a gun emplacement and a supply dump, while William was attempting to inflict 50% casualties before I could do that.  This was more balanced, although we decreed that most of his forces were off the table and had to arrive piecemeal.  Nevertheless, I still lost.  William agreed that it was a fun set of rules.  While I wouldn’t want to use them exclusively, they do make for a very engaging game in the confined space of the dining room gaming table.  A little polishing and the second game could be a good scenario for reuse...Anyway, I hope to post a fuller report before the weekend arrives and the festivities overtake us.
Last gasp of the League attack; note the mortars emplaced in the top right

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

A Shortcut to Mushrooms, as fought

William and I sat down to fight the encounter yesterday. Unfortunately he needed to get back to his summer job, so we rushed a bit and I didn't take as many pictures as I had planned.

William took the elves, and I took the goblins. After one false start, in which the entire group of goblins entered on the mushroom grove side of the stream and were unable to catch the fleeing elves, we started over, dividing the goblins into three groups and randomizing the entrance for each group. I ended up with one team of two goblins (one an archer) and a wolf entering near the mushroom grove, and all of the other figures entering near the boat.

I decided that I would try to use one wolf to attempt to reach the ford on the boat side ahead of the elves, and sent a few goblins to back him up. The rest of the goblins made an (abortive, as it turned out) rush for the boat, hoping to overwhelm the three boat guards.



The raiders attempting to reach the boats were swiftly shot down by the carefully aimed archery of the elves.

However, one wold did reach the ford ahead of the elves, and stood blocking the exit. An elvish guardsman came forward to scuffle with him, the princess crowding close behind.
After dispatching the wolf on the grove side of the stream with a well-aimed arrow, Orman the hero ran to assist the guardsman. Unfortunately for him, his uncertain footing in the stream was his undoing, and the wolf swiftly ripped out his throat...

Gamely, the guardsman fought on, but the fall of the heroic Orman must have unnerved him, as he too was slain in turn. At that point, the princess fled back to the safety (?) of the grove, pursued by the wolf. Hearing her cries for help in the distance, two of the boat guard leapt from the boat and raced toward the ford. The fall of another goblin put the raiders below half strenght, and their morale was not good. Two more goblins fled immediately rather than face the wrath of the avenging elves, and the wolf released the princess and fled as well.


The princess hurried across the ford, only to be accosted by the one remaining orc. With a swift kick, she drove him back for long enough to resume her flight to the boat.


The two guardsmen turned on the orc, and swiftly lopped off his head. With that, the remaining goblin and the wolf fled, considering it a moral vicotry that they had brought down a hero of the elves, even if the princess did escape unscathed with the mushroom spores.


Overall, it took a little more than an hour to play out. We remain confirmed in our view that the SBH point system does not really balance two forces of disparate quality. The goblins were never able to achieve enough activations to make good use of their superior numbers, so a balanced version of this scenario would probably require more goblins, even with the elves' relatively difficult tactical situation. The mechanics give a nice fast game, though, so developing a tested scenario library would probably be the way to go.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Dux Bellorum trial game


Originally posted in 2012--apparently updating the label brought it back to the top of the blog...


As I mentioned in my previous post, elder son Norman was home for the weekend.  I'd had a week to myself, and was ready for some company...After our casting marathon, we had dedicated Sunday afternoon to playing some sort of game.  I sgguested that we try Dux Bellorum, which I had picked up at Historicon.  The game uses elements of troops; basing is somewhat optional, but the usual WRG sized elements would work.  My massed Dark Ages armies on on two rank 80mm wide stands, so that's what we used.  The standard 32 point army yields about 8 stands in some mixture of companions (and the leader), nobles, lesser warriors and skirmishers.  We were playing at a remote location, so we had a limited selection of trade-outs.  Also, to keep things reasonable for a learning game, we limited strategems to one each.  I took "javelins", and Norman took "Experienced Warlord".  As it turned out, neither of them had any significant effect on the game.







Norman consults the rules


The mechanics of the game are fairly simple. Units may form groups with like units for movement. Movement is alternating. Combat involves throwing a number of dice for a target number based on the opposing unit's protection rating. My Viking Sea Raiders were mostly Warriors with a (d6) protection rating of 5 and throwing 6 dice; Norman's Saxons were Shieldwall with a protection of 6 and throwing 3 or 4 dice. A charging unit gets an extra die. Units can be pushed back if they take more hits than they give; if they are pushed up against an obstacle, they take extra hits. This did come into play in one corner of the field.




A rather rudimentary layout


Because of the remote location, and to keep the game simple, we used a very basic scenery set up.





My bravery roll for my first move


Units have to roll under their bravery to move; I got off to an inauspicious start...




Norman, as Athelstan the Overconfident, decided to advance into contact


The main mechanical peculiarity in the game is the use of Leadership Points. These LPs are allocated by the commander at the beginning of each turn, and can be used to cancel combat hits, add agression dice, or modify bravery rolls. Canceling hits felt like the most powerful use to us.





Norman impetuously pushed forward at the beginning. There didn't seem to be much ability or need to break off combats, so we stayed stuck in until combats finally resolved. He eventually took out my left and right flanks just as I finished off his center.

Looking bad on my right flank




5 cohesion points taken of 6; right down to the wire...


We probably missed a few rules; I intend to reread them now that I have an inkling of what they actually mean. Overall, though, it was fun, something like a DBA with the added LP mechanism making the clash of shieldwalls a little more interesting. We will play again...


Monday, November 4, 2013

Fresh Hordes

The paper models stayed on the shelf this weekend, and the paintbrushes remained in the holder. Both of my sons were home in conjunction with having friends over for dinner, and William was busy with homework.
Nevertheless, Norman and I found time for a Hordes of the Things session on Sunday morning. Both of us have painted new troops since the last time we played, so we wanted to try them out in combat. We fought three games, all with different army match-ups.

Game 1 pitted his mostly rider-based fantasy Mongols against a ragtag band of my miscellaneous fantasy stands. I managed to summon a dragon, which took out a rider and a hero before fleeing after a wound. I remain dubious about the use of dragons in HotT....Still, I won that fight.




The second game pitted the same raggle-taggle fantasy army
against Norman's fantasy Byzantines. Once more, I managed to get my dragon into play early.




I even managed a flanking maneuver, causing his general to turn to face, subject to destruction if forced to recoil. The first game wore out my luck for the day, though, and my dragon was sent fleeing from some doubtless minor wound. With that, Norman rolled up the remainder of my resistance in short order.




After a brief break, we went for a tie-breaker, pitting his
Antediluvian army against a force
of my recently rebased Carthaginians. We ended up with a clash of phalanxes, which was
broken when his hero worked his way around to the back of my line and blocked the retreat of my commander's phalanx. With the resulting loss of my general, my army disintegrated.




All in all, a pleasant gaming interlude, my 29th for the year...

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Scuffle at the Elven Tower -- A Knights and Magick Battle Report

After the completion of the household move and the recent business trip to Korea, both of my sons were home last weekend for a combination of a slightly belated birthday celebration and Easter. We took the opportunity to set up a small fantasy skirmish game using Knights and Magick. K&M was recently rereleased in pdf; the original was published by Heritage in 1980. I have a full review posted elsewhere on the blog.





The table included a river and ford, the tower, a small settlement of human serfs (who prudently fled and were not represented on the table), a small patch of woods and a couple of hills. The decadence of the elves was suggested by the fallen pillar at the tower approach...





We started by pulling out all of the individually mounted orcs in my collection, adding a warlord and a couple of ogres, and calculating a point value using K&Ms Book 3. This orcish force consisted of 27 figures in total. They were deemed to be investing the tower. An elvish force of equal point value was created, starting with a group of 6 assorted mounted figures, followed by a bow-armed hero and 6 archers as a tower garrison, and then filling in with a mix of sword elves in chain with shields (6) and unarmored spear elves (10). The elf cavalry and hero were rated at morale level A, and the balance of the elves were morale level B. A few better orcs and the ogres were morale B, with the balance of the orcs being morale C. The elvish force was tasked with clearing the table of orcs. We elected to use the small game rules, which meant that morale was checked only for individuals. This probably had the effect of reducing the penalty associated with the C class orcs, who could not be induced to flee en masse.

Norman took the orcs and William took the elves. Norman deployed a detachment of sword orcs near Lone Tree Hill, a detachment of spear orcs, an ogre, and the two wolf riders in a covered position between the woods and the human building, and the balance of his force across the ford in the hedged field.




Here the orcs await the approach of any elves...



The game opened with the appearance of the elvish horse on the edge of the table on the road at the far right in the overview picture. This placed them almost on top of the orcs guarding Lone Tree Hill. Seeing their hated enemies appear, they bellowed an orcish war cry and plunged into the mass of the riders. Caught off guard, not all of the elves were able to countercharge, and a desperate melee ensued. When the dust settled, all seven orcs were dead, but they had taken three of the elite elvish riders with them.



Meanwhile, across the ford, the elvish foot patrol, led by the spears, approached along the other road. They, too, seemed surprised to find the orcs almost on top of them. The elves' skill with the spear turned out to be insufficient to deal with the armor of the orcs, and the spear elves were rapidly cut down.




This fracas highlighted a bit of bad planning on my part, as it clumped up in one corner of the board. The bows of the tower garrison could almost reach the ford at long range, so it was too dangerous to move within line of sight of the tower. Norman's ogre found this out the hard way, by attempting to intervene in the fight against the cavalry, which necessitated leaving the shelter of the woods.




Meanwhile, back at the bloody road, the elvish swords made a valiant effort to force their way through to the ford. Although their armor and shields were a great help, and they gave better than they got, they too were cut down or forced to flee.



The surviving riders, upon looking over the field and realizing that they were heavily outnumbered by the remaining orcs, spurred up the road to the tower to join the garrison. Thus, the standoff continued, as both sides sent for further reinforcements to try to alter the situation on a later day. The orcs had not been driven off, and were held to be victorious, at least for the moment.

The whole game took about 12 turns and was played in a little under two hours. Norman was pleased to not have his troops swept from the field in a contagious rout. William was shaken to find that his troops were more fragile than he was accustomed to after years of playing Medieval Mayhem, and I was glad of an opportunity to remind myself of these rules. As expected, the game flowed fairly quickly. I did all the chart lookups since I neglected to copy the charts in advance. K&M is, as I wrote in my review, a little fussy to my streamlined current tastes, but not by any means unmanageable. I look forward to running another game, perhaps a little larger, soon.

However, the next thing on the schedule will be a return to the Not Quite Seven Years War, with a game on the 6th to allow several participants to field some new recruits.



Saturday, February 16, 2013

Tentacles and Chariots

As I mentioned last time, the move is absorbing most of my time, and an especially busy period at work is taking most of the rest of my energy. Therefore, despite the fact that I played this game back on the 3rd, the pictures have been languishing in a draft post since then.

Without further ado...

Norman ran a playtest game for the rules he intends to use for his Cold Wars games in just a few weeks. We used a tried-and-true scenario, The Wagon Train, from C.S. Grant's Scenarios for Wargames, and armies built from the Caesar 1/72 scale Egyptians and Hittites. The scenario calls for a random entry of the attacker's troops. I was attacking, as the Egyptians, and it worked out that most of the game was spent in a chase after the supply train. A unit or two appearing ahead of them could have been of considerable assistance. We inflicted heavy casualties on the Hittite escorts, but never got near the supplies.

Norman's rules are designed around the idea that cohesion is the only statistic tracked, and all manner of things, excess movement, attacks, and combat results particularly, all reduce cohesion. Units can rally to regain cohesion. This worked fairly well, although it would probably work best in scenarios with time limits, to avoid being all about rallies.



We had the game on the dining room table, about 3' by 6'. The wargame tables have not yet made the move.


Norman's baggage train is a favorite. When he is working in 1/72 plastic, he usually works with the artistic limitation of restricting himself to plastic figures. The cows (painted in accordance with Egyptian tomb painting depictions of cattle) are from the Atlantic Stampede set. The pack donkeys started as Airfix Tarzan zebras, and the oxen with the scratchbuilt wagon were a flea market find in hard plastic of unknown origin. Drivers are from the Caesar Hebrew set.

Buying into the Reaper Kickstarter last summer left me with a taste for fantasy. I later bought into a Kickstarter for some wierd fantasy miniatures called Tentacles and Eyeballs. I picked up my package of Tentacles and Eyeballs at Christmas, but was only recently able to start on them.


In keeping with the theme, the first miniature I painted was the medium tentacle...


...followed by three small floating eyeballs.


They are shown here with a Reaper Bones fighter for a idea of the size.

I had a little time to do some painting yesterday, but will save the pictures until something is actually completed. While my plan for the year was to crunch on NQSYW figures and start on the Reaper package when it arrives, moving has caused me to look in all the boxes of incomplete projects I have. I collected all of the remaining Dark Ages figures for a look and inventory, but I'll save that for another post...

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Song of Blades and Heroes Skirmish, 21 April

As mentioned a while ago, we had the opportunity to pull out some old figures and try a game of Song of Blades and Heroes a few weeks ago.  The human defenders are mostly old Foundry Normans, with a Heritage wizard from the Knights and Magick Merlin set, and the orcs were mostly Prince August homecast figures, supplemented with a couple of old Ral Partha goblin wolfriders.  My mother did the ground cloth for me recently (along with one for Norman), with a quilting print green fabric on one side and a mottled desert tan on the other, so I'm set for small skirmish games for the present.

We found the rules to be fairly easy to use, but the conflation of morale and dexterity for one number and attack and defense ability for the other number seemed to lead to some odd results.  We'll probably try it again presently, but we're also thinking about writing a formal modification of our Medieval Mayhem home skirmish rules for fantasy situations.

An overview of the field, 3' by 3' cloth

Goblin wolfrider reaches the human defenders

The human mage looks vainly for an opportunity to try something

Last stand of the orcs







Sunday, January 17, 2010

On the other table

We still have yesterday's Morschauser game on the wargames table, so we ended up setting up a small game on the dining room table after supper today. William has been a fan of Rattrap Games skirmish rules (especially Gloire), so we set up a little test scenario from the Broadsword Adventure rule book. It's generally intended to be suitable for Conan-style games involving a handful of figures on each side. Here you see our hastily improvised slaver force about to descend on a native village. The leader is a Mithril Haradrim of some sort, and his minions are Foundry Darkest Africa tribesmen.Here's a view of the whole set up. One of the two heroes can be barely seen on the far side of the table behind the white hut. Huts and jungle material were borrowed from my Darkest Africa collection.

It was moderately amusing, but one figure per player can be frustrating; Norman's figure was locked in combat for most of the game. This is also the first time we've played these rules at home, so the main result was to leave William and me resolved to go back and read the rules more thoroughly.