An Actual Game!

 After what seems like forever, I finally got to push toy soldiers around and throw dice on Saturday night. My nephew is in town so he joined Ziggy and I for a game of Lion Rampant. Jason's in his early 20s and enjoys boardgames. It took no convincing for him to join Ziggy and me. I set up the same scenario I played back in July with Mark and Mike - Scenario 8, Sausages with Mustard, Spain vs Venice. Jason and I shared command of the Spanish attackers while Ziggy's Venetians defended. Forces are 45 points each, there are a total of four commands, two per side. 

Our battlefield. Besides killing Italians, we were tasked with setting the three buildings aflame.

Early turn 1... Ziggy's mercenary Greatswords move out.

The first of many failures of mine. My light cavalry fail to evade Italian heavy cavalry. Los Jinetes are very quicky a memory. Yeah, failing an Evade is painful.

After a few turns, the battle lines form up in the center. Jason immediately gets to work trying to burn the buildings. We're also in the difficult position of pikes vs pikes and similar where it's really hard to get an advantage.

Thanks to a less than fortunate couter-charge, the Greatswords and Jason's heavy cavalry inadvertently meet in the woods and an ugly melee results in both units breaking. I'm not sure a failed counter-charge would have been worse. Is what it is.

Ah, a proper fight. Heavy cav vs. top-shelf halberdiers led by El Capitan con Corazon de Leon. Both units suffered mightily and ran away from each other.

After at least an hour of trying (and I did look at the metadata on the photographs to see how long it look), we finally get the flame to take on the library! 

Into the home stretch... My commander and his halberdiers searching for that lost shaker of salt... Italian cavalry doing the same. 

After more failure, finally the orphanage catches fire and burns on its own!

The game's conclusion... Jason's halberds ran off the greatswords who would never recover. The long-quiet Venetian crossbowmen shot up Jason's pikemen and ran them off. Ultimately, we failed our army morale check and retreated, but not before also forcing Ziggy's Italians to take a morale test as well! We'd managed to inflict some real damage late in the game. Not really sure how we made it a competitive battle because it felt like we just stood there and accepted a complete beatdown by the Italians the whole evening. I'll take it! We all had a good time and as always, looking forward to another game soon,. Be well!

Memorial Day Weekend Activities

 It's been an awesome long Memorial Day weekend and I took an extra day off because of the late night last night. More on that in a moment.

    On Sunday I met Mike and Mark for an afternoon of gaming. I took my Renaissance Spanish and Venetians for a big Lion Rampant game (45 points per side). Each side was split into two commands and each command's initiative order was determined every turn. We played the Sausages with Mustard scenario, with the Venetians defending. Mike and Mark shared leadership duties on the Spanish side while I wrangled the Italians.

An early opening shot. You can see the four buildings in the center which the Spanish were trying to burn down. I deployed a unit of pikemen in the middle as my single forward "speedbump" unit.

The first engagement took place in the hill with the tower. Our heavy cavalry squared off with Mark successfully counter-charging me.

I got the better of the engagement and the Spanish horsemen fell back...

A wide view of the center. I was having a far better time activating units than M&M.

On the right, my crossbowmen had peppered the Spanish light cav who were facing a block of pikemen.

The center had turned into a mess. I had pikemen and greatswords in disarray. The greatswords learned firsthand how nasty arquebusiers are!

In one of my favorite moments of the afternoon was when Mike's initiative rolls had him active twice, back-to-back... fourth in one turn and first in the next. He used the opportunity to charge his heavy cav into my light cavalry. I passed the evade test and fell back into the woods. The Spanish cavalry still completed their charge but in the trees, everyone was hitting on 5+ and only had 2 armor! The equalizer paid off as the Spanish cavalry took it on the chin. 

We played a bit more but at the end of the day, the Spanish torches couldn't get the job done and no buildings burned! In all fairness, my dice were hot and both Mike and Mark rolled hot garbage most of the day. You probably don't need me to tell you how frustrating the Rampant games can be when your activations are failing early and often.

Mark and I then played an introductory game of Quar - Clash of Rhyfles. Interesting item of note... Mark has been bumping his gums for YEARS about his collection of Quar and trying to sell us on the game. He's never once offered to put it on the table and show it off. Mike picks up the new models from Wargames Atlantic and has it on the table in a fortnight. Classic.

We each had 10 troops with a mix of weapons, mostly rifles but also some SAWs and SMGs. The clear glass bauble in the picture above is our objective location we fought over.

My blues turned things into a tragedy for the greens. I was able to get a few very useful fire lanes set up, picking off enemy troops left and right.

I did lose a couple in the process, but in the end was able to take the objective, occupy the enemy backfield and overall, take the win!

Last evening, my wife and I did something quite unusual for us... we went to a WWE RAW pro wrestling event at the new area in Savannah. I got a couple of freebie tickets from work and, well... it was a heck of a lot of fun. 

and of course a cage match!

Even if you aren't a fan, it's truly quite a production spectacle and those athletes are amazing to watch. Awesome stuff.

July Update

Happy weekend. Just posting a few pics of things I've been working on recently. 

I churned through 40 pikemen for the Ventians and Spanish over the last couple weeks. I've been painting very sporadically. These guys probably spent three weeks on the popsicle sticks. They're being based today. Finally.

On that note, my wife and I tested some massed combat rules I put together last weekend. Just a simple mechanical play test and the end result proved that the basic rule mechanics are sound. Now comes the challenge of codifying it all. 

I ordered these two Infinity models after our last game of Infinity. They're for the Starco mercs, a TAG (heavy armored mecha) with the red shoulder bits and a Mobile Brigada heavy infantry (with the yellow) who can lead the group. Frankly, that troop type is the only lieutenant option available to the Starco mercenaries that is even remotely threatening. The other options are cheap chumps that don't deliver a lot of "oomph" whereas the Mobile Brigada is a real threat.

I also picked up a couple of boats for Blood and Plunder a little while back. 

Just a dugout Canoa for the natives and a Piragua for whomever needs it. It purposefully left it very neutral, no flags or other markings so it will fit in with any operator. The sails are 1/8 inch flexible hobby foam sheet from Michaels. It's easy to cut to size, stays in shape and takes superglue well. Some thread loops and done. Rigging is for display pieces, not game pieces. I have a Sloop incoming as well, but it's a preorder and I don't think it'll arrive before September. 

I've also taken possession of some 1/300 planes for some commission painting for Wayne.

These Su-22s have some miscast noses, but they'll paint up fine. Wayne really enjoyed CY6:JA and ordered a handful of Cold War-era planes. Certainly enough to keep me busy a while. I'm looking forward to working on them. 

Recent Games

 I haven't had the energy to put together full battle reports for the last two games I played but I took loads of pictures and figured I should share.

Both games are from a couple weekends ago. I took the Italian Wars models over to Mike's place and we played Swordpoint for an afternoon. 

The game war a closely fought affair. I commanded the Venetians while Mike and Mark split the Spanish contingent. 

My newly painted cavalry smashes into a regiment of swordsmen. My heavy armor proves to be useless since my dice are obviously traitors.

My troops complete the long run across the table. My pikemen plow into the halberdiers. The dice again prove to be my undoing.

And now we get to the part where Mark's patented "stop retreating at the edge of the carpet" talent kicks in. My troops drove him back to the edge and then the Spanish just stopped backing up.

The face of evil... and Mike.

Mark's mortar finally finds a target late in the game and finishes off a unit of Venetian arquebusiers. Feh.

In "the other" battle on the left flank, I had a squadron of light horse rout when threatened by a flank charge from some lousy Spanish pikemen. The curses were loud and long. Nothing like routing on turn 10 of a ten-turn game and no way to rally.

In the end, we gave the Spanish a minor victory for eliminating two units compared to just one that wiped out. Mark's inability to fail morale tests caused me considerable trouble. Mike's skillful maneuvering of his units on the left kept my light cavalry hemmed in and busy. Either way, it was a great afternoon's battle.

A couple days later, on Monday (Labor Day here in the US of A) my wife and I played a bit of my simple skirmish rules that I put together to play X-Files themed games.

The table layout was tasty. We had aliens and government agents competing to control five uplink sites. 

A group of aliens wastes little time capturing one of the control points. Looks like they've got a massive robot moving in as well!

A couple of SUVs and an armored personnel carrier move in. Two agents hop out and make their way to one of the pylons.

My helo spots another group of aliens in the distance.

I send some soldiers to battle a group of invaders amidst the fog. Things don't go well for my soldiers.

Scully and Mulder have hitched a lift on the chopper and head to assist a lone agent near pylon 1.

Their presence helps, but is it too little, too late?

It seems to be, as the aliens complete the uplink and they're able transmit their message to the mothership.

And of course a quick video of the table.

So there... not just painting around here lately. There has been some gaming. Looking forward to Southern Front this weekend!