Happy Hogswatch!

 

My compliments of the season to you all!  Thank you for stopping by, apologies for my absence of late (is this becoming a pattern?) and here's hoping you get some gaming goodness under the Christmas tree!

Lest we forget

 

The East End Mystery

On Saturday it was the closest club meeting to Halloween so I put on a Victorian Horror game using Fistful of Lead: Tales of Horror.

A series of disappearances in the East End of London attract the attention of both official and unofficial detectives.

The player forces consistent of an Inspector and Sergeant from Scotland Yard accompanied by three local constables; and a certain consulting detective, his faithful companion and three irregulars.

Here are some photos from the game:

Battle of Quendon Bay

The other week a friend and I put on a larger Sails of Glory game at the Herts Volunteers.  This one was a fictional encounter inspired by the Battle of the Nile but allowed the French to react to the British fleet thus making it a more interesting game for them.

I put together some coastal terrain for the game the weekend before and, as always with such projects would do some of it differently next time but you live and learn.

We had a mixed group of players some of whom had played before but several had not.  They picked up the rules pretty quickly and all seemed to enjoy the game.  We played with most of the advanced and optional rules but not variable wind strength - which was probably a good decision as the variable wind direction gave the French something of a challenge by itself!

Here are some photos of the game:

First Play: Blood & Valor

Given I have quite a selection of 28mm WW1 figures I have been looking at options for rules to help me get them to the table.  Whilst Blood & Valor (sic) may look nearer the game end of the spectrum rather than the simulation end, it is flexible enough to enable you to put together historical organisations.

So I decided to put together a couple of scenarios to test out the rules at the last club meeting.  I decided to go with late war using my French and German troops.  It also gave me a chance to get one of my purchases from years ago to the table (finally!).

Here are a few photos from the two games:

The rules were very easy to pick up and the players commented how easy they were to remember during the game without the need for lots of referencing.  The initiative bidding mechanism is interesting but really only creates meaningful choices once the sides are engaged.  Whilst I'm not a huge fan of saving roll mechanisms they work pretty smoothly here.  I need to reflect on the morale results as I wonder whether some tweaks there will help with the feel but I need more games to decide.

Battle of Komarów - 3rd Day (Tarnoszyn/Korchiv Engagement)

Having finished painting my second division of WW1 Russians I wanted an opportunity to get them to the table.

This scenario is set on August 28th and the third day of the Battle of Komarów. The battle was relatively quiet on the second day with a lot of redeploying of lines and movement of various Corps to cover different areas on the field. There had been some reverses for the Austrians, primarily the 10th Cavalry Division had been driven back. 

This engagement area is to the extreme Austrian right, where Archduke Joseph Ferdinand’s group was going to launch into the Russian XVII Corps. 

The Russians were not set up for defence and were actually on the move to the west to try and shore up the crumbling XIX, XXV and V Corps, who had been hard pressed on day one and had spent day two retreating along the line. 

The action started early in the day with the Austrian 8th and 41st Honved Infantry Divisions launching a surprise attack into the Russian 3rd and 35th Infantry Divisions.

Here are few pictures from the game:

The Battle of Ramillies, 1706

It having been an age since I had played Maurice by Sam Mustafa and a friend expressing an interest in trying them out, I decided to run a game at the club.

I found a scenario for the Battle Ramillies (the only one of Marlborough’s famous battles scaled for two players as opposed to four players - using the optional ‘Doubles’ rules).

The game was as fun as remember; however, whilst I had explained the rules I didn’t give my friend enough pointers on tactics as he was playing Marlborough and so needed to be pretty aggressive to win.

Here are a few photos from the game: