Thursday 12 June 2008

Gaming Weekend

Lenin paid a visit last weekend and we managed to get quite a few miniatures games in. Here's a brief summary and some photos:

Late WW2 Nuts!

Keen to use the Artizan and Bolt Action figures which Lenin has kindly painted for me, along with my new Terrain Mat I put on a late WW2 game using Two Hour Wargames' Nuts! rules. We hadn't previously used the reinforcement mechanisms and so we were keen to test those out too. This was a recon mission with the US advancing from the woods into the town and the Germans in defensive positions. In the end it was a US victory with the Germans withdrawing but it certainly showed that the rules work well. The terrain was mostly Eslo and Terrascenic.

Hour of Glory

Next out Lenin put together Warm Acre's Hour of Glory which he had bought as a download. We used my Wargames Foundry German infantry as the defenders and the Warm Acre Rachael Knight figures for Lenin's single raider. In the end it was very close with Lenin conceding that he couldn't get the last bit of intelligence he needed in the last couple of minutes but it had been a tight game.

Clash of Patrols in Belleau Wood

Next up was another Nuts! game, this time late WW1 with USMC and German patrols clashing in Belleau Wood. This was really intended to get my WW1 figures on to the table and to see how Nuts! performs when there aren't any automatic weapons. For some reason in the WW2 game we hadn't paid much attention to casualties and were just taking the "Out of the Fight" figures off the table. In this game we decided to be a little more realistic and make sure we moved those troops back to safety. This gave the game a completely different flavour and the rules worked well even without automatic weapons - so they'll be our rules of choice for this earlier period too.

Gloire in Old Japan

Lenin put together a "3 Act" game using the Rattrap Productions Gloire rules but applied to medieval Japan. It was a bit of a departure for Lenin as not only did the game not have any firearms (which is pretty unusual) but there weren't any ranged weapons at all! The style of play fitted nicely with the Rattrap approach and again the 2' x 2' playing space makes the games efficient and economical. It did, however, give Lenin a chance to use some JJD walls he had recently painted (very nicely too!). With a little more cosmetic modifications (appropriate sword fighting styles and the like) I think he's on to a winner here.

Seconds Away WW3!

Two Hour Wargames' rules got another outing with our next game which was a nice mix of both our figures and terrain. Set in the latter part of the 20th Century and following a coup in the Soviet Union the Russians launch a conventional first strike. In this case they dropped paratroops to capture a weapons storage facility in West Germany housing tactical nuclear weapons. Guarding the facility is a section of TA. As might be expected the Rep 3 & 4 TA didn't last terribly long against the Rep 5 & 6 Russian paratroops. Fortunately, help soon arrived in the form of a section of Paras who were a better match for the Russians. Not only was this another good test of the reinforcement rules but it also demonstrated that the reaction based rules work very well when everyone has automatic weapons. It also gave some clear indications as to how varied Reps would perform when pitched against each other - I do have my reservations about Rep 6 though (but maybe that's just me!)

Solomon Kane and the Dark Continent

Our final big game was simply an opportunity for me to use my Solomon Kane figure. In a scenario loosely based on the Moon of Skulls we pitched a lone Kane against a table full of faithful followers of the Vampire Queen in an attempt to rescue the maiden. Using the stats from the Savage World of Solomon Kane our Kane cut through the tribal warriors like a hot knife through butter. In the end the Vampire Queen had to barter the maiden for her own survival and Kane left triumphant - of course the Vampire Queen isn't dead...

Gaming Weekend - Jun 08

2 comments:

  1. Why wouldn't there be automatic weapons in Belleau Wood? Machine guns were in the hands of both sides.

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  2. Dan - you're right that there were automatic weapons at Belleau Wood. What I meant was that I didn't use any in this scenario. In the actual clash of patrols the MGs the patrols were carrying weren't actually of much use due to the terrain (plus I hadn't got mine painted yet!) so I decided to try it without.

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