Civil Little Wars

 We were able to try out a play-test  version of these English Civil War rules.

 

Each side had three files of troops plus a Captain, Lieutenant, drummer and Ensign.

 

Our first session was a straight battle. I had the Parliamentarians.

I pushed a file up the right to get the cover of a large tree while Andy had to clamber over a wall.

Andy's forces included a unit of halberdiers, the Queen's lifeguard. His musketeers popped out and exchanged fire and then moved back behind a house.

I moved up the centre and shot at the the halberdiers, but Andy's next unit of musketeers inflicted significant damage on me.

 I threw everything up the table to try to recover the situation but soon both my units were almost wiped out.

 

Game 2, vs John Curry. We had a scenario this time, to escort Queen Henrietta Maria across the table and exit using one of two roads.

This time I was the Royalists. The Parliamentarians moved across to block our path. My first unit was rapidly devastated when it moved out to fight. The initiative system allowed John to have multiple turns in a row, reloading and firing while I was unable to respond

I sent the Queen and her guards round the side  while my second unit of musketeers got almost wiped out. Then I sent the guards racing up the road to tie up the closest enemy unit. 

Since the enemy couldn't shoot the Queen I hoped the speed of the horse might get her past them and out of reach to escape alone.

This didn't go well either and my halbadiers were wiped out with another parliamentarian unit joining the melee. At this point I intended to have the Queen ride back to the rear and exit the table, preventing her capture. But John was able to keep the initiative and was marching across the table. We decided to end it there as the Queen would have been off when I did get the initiative back and assumed she would have escaped, making it a draw. Although I had taken about 8 times as many losses.

 

Full Spectrum Dominance

 We played a new set of rules at the club on Sunday. 

 

Full Spectrum Dominance from The Lazy Forger. It is a scale-neutral science fiction game up to 15mm. It uses Distance Units which vary according to the scale being used. Each unit has a card containing it's abilities and to record damage.

We each get 8 activation dice which can either be used to activate a unit, or placed on a unit card to activate an ability such as firing the main weapon. units have a command value allowing them to activate another unit close by, or several in the case of command units. I didn't realise that a command value of one meant it could activate one other unit, I thought that meant is could only activate itself, so I have some excuse for losing.

 

We could bring on a limited amount of units each turn. I started with my two big tanks in the centre, my scout infantry on the left and an APC with infantry on the right. There were four minor objectives which disappear once claimed, My scouts were able to infiltrate close to one, Andy rushed a transport up to the one opposite on his side.

Our forces were assorted 6mm miniatures from different sources, Andy's were epic 40k orks. They were all from Nick's collection, who umpired. It was the first time with the rules for all of us.

There were three large bunkers, the ones either side were to be captured. The one in the middle could be destroyed which would end the game. On the right I went straight for the bunker, passing by the minor objective on that side. One of the infantry units was quickly killed. Next turn I brought on my other mechanised squad to take the minor objective.

One of my big tanks got into an uneven duel with the opposing tanks and was destroyed.

My remaining tanks came on and had some success to begin with destroying an enemy tank.

Next they moved to the left in the hope of taking the softer target of Andy's infantry in the objective on the left. My own scouts had been wiped out after claiming their minor objective. I had lost more points and I didn't think either objective was going to change hands now so I was trying to do damage.

Each objective gained us a card with a variable number of victory points and a special rule. One of mine was worth double points if I destroyed two enemy units with one of mine in a single turn. I thought my tanks might destroy two bases of infantry with one attack, but that wouldn't count as it was still one unit. Then I thought I could get two units by using my 'free' machine gun. However while it didn't require a dice to fire it was still an action and I had already moved an fired.

Now the tanks were in trouble as Andy's mechs came up on their side where they were more vulnerable. They both took tow hits each, losing their main guns before one more hit destroyed one of them.

On the right my main battle tank was fighting three enemy tanks. I destroyed one and another went off to attack my other tanks in the rear.

 My infantry destroyed Andy's APC. I was expecting them to die at any moment so I kept my other squad ready behind them to occupy the bunker. I brought up one of my walkers at the end to attack the enemy infantry in the house.

I did manage to get all of Andy's infantry eventually but he had drawn higher value cards for achieving objectives and my losses were worth more points which reduced my victory points. After casualties Andy scored seven VPs and I scored three.

Reveille 2024

 On 24th November we held our annual show at Lincombe Barn, Reveille.

Despite Storm Bert being in progress all our traders and exhibitors made it and we were only slightly down on numbers through the door.

We had 16 traders spread between five rooms.

 

Never Mind The Ruckus, Mike Peters

 

Cruel Seas, Dick Mans & Will Watson, LBWS.

54mm Anglo Zulu War, The Skirmish Group

 

12mm Battle of the Bulge, Quickfire Games

28mm small scale ECW, Steve Jones, The Warre Group 

28mm Pancho Villa (Mexican Revolution), Penarth Wargames Club

20mm Rapid Fire, North Africa WWII, Wargaming Headquarters

Display by the IPMS

Traders were: Pit Gaming, Great Escape Games, Blotz, Red3 Miniatures, The Square, Martin Hackett, Oakbound Studios, Disdain Studios, History of Wargames Project, Scarab, Reinforcements, Gloster Models, Headbunny Games, Grubby Tanks, Warpaint Figures and Tabletop Terrain.

Door receipts have been donated to charity, the Downend Folk House Association.

Reveille 2025 will be same time next year. 

VCBW with aliens

 In our 8 player game of A Very British Civil War last week two sides investigated a village that had mysteriously gone silent.

 The doors to all the houses seemed to be booby-trapped and a beserk goat was knocking people over.

I wasn't able to get there for the beginning so I arrived as reinforcements, and wouldn't find out what was going on until I made contact with friendly forces. I didn't reach them and never got the briefing, hence the very short battle report. 

My unit was mostly killed by fire from the enemy and an unknown force. It was revealed that they were aliens when their space ship arrived to collect them.The models are plastic Quar from Wargames Atlantic.

Sculpting Intro

On Sunday we had an Intro to Sculpting workshop with Steve Jones of Captain General. It was fun and informative, and I managed to come up with some mods for my Mauryan war elephant.

More Billhooks at the Barn

 The other week we had a four player War of the Roses game using Never Mind the Billhooks. Unlike the previous game on the blog this was with 28mm figures.

On the left flank Kev's skirmishers were on top of us before we had even moved due to an event card.

I had hoped to occupy the nearby cover with my own skirmishers and fight from there but that wasn't an option any more. I decided to push into the centre of the table, out of their range.

I sent my longbowmen into the rough ground with one of my commanders further out to keep in command range of the advancing pikemen.

The enemy weren't slowed down by the bad going and charged my commander. As they were accompanied by a commander of their own I challenged him to single combat and lost. Meanwhile my pikemen charged the enemy archers and lost dismally, both to defensive fire and melee, failing to kill any of the enemy.

After killing my commander the enemy billmen charged the archers and eventually destroyed them.

The enemy knights crossed a hedge and charged the archers on our right side, routing them. Our billmen charged them back and were routed to.

My light cavalry were threatened by Kev's crossbows and handguns who were moving towards them. They would be better off in a fight than being whittled away by skirmishers who could evade them so I sent them up after my infantry.

My billmen routed some archers while the cavalry got into a fight with enemy billmen which they eventually lost being outnumbered. My commander challenged his and again lost. The enemy billmen than charged my own and destroyed them too. By now my whole half of the army was lost.

Our men at arms, despite disturbed by comrades fleeing past them now attacked the enemy knights and lost.

Most of our army was now dead, including two out of three commanders. A few troops routing were not capable of fighting the remaining enemy, so it was a decisive victory for the other side.