Last Game I Played - Black Powder

I played my first game of Black Powder, a hypothetical scenario of the Saxons fighting the French around 1806 using Mark's lovely collection of 15/18mm miniatures.

Having played Pike & Shotte and Hail Caesar before, I was able to muddle my way through the game. Things weren't slow, even though there was plenty of lead on the table and above all the game was a lot of fun.

Below is my Saxon army arrayed at the beginning of the battle. On the left flank my cavalry division of heavy (garde du corps, leib cuirassiers and cuirassiers) and light (hussars, Chevau-légers and uhlans) cavalry units supported by artillery:

My central division with infantry and artillery:

And finally my right flank with grenadiers, light infantry and artillery:

Mark fielded a similar composed army of French.

I decided to be aggressive with my grenadiers and charge forward (without softening up the opposition). Unsurprisingly they got surrounded and blown to bits (I hopefully won't be doing that again).

This was followed by my light cavalry being out fought by their counterparts (uhlans charging uhlans):

I put up a stiff fight, but with both flanks collapsing, and having failed to succeed in taking the town it was a clear victory to Mark.

Along with the 15mm Field of Glory Napoleonic games that were being played, this game inspired me to pull out my collection of unpainted AB Figures French and start getting them prepped for painting. Let's see if I can get at least a unit or two painted by the end of the year. And my thoughts on Black Powder with 15mm miniatures? Loved it - quick and easy. And with any game able to cope with this much on the table gets a big thumbs up from me.

Badgacon 2018 - Walking Dead All Out War

Took part in a small tournament at Badgacon (host by BADGA in Bendigo) for Mantic's Walking Dead All Out War. We all constructed 100 point survivor bands and played without scenarios as it was aimed at beginners. I drove up with James, and we both had similar builds (using Patrick and Sandra).

My survivor band consisted of:
Veteran Patrick (29) with baseball bat (10) & keepsake (4)
Sandra (20) with kitchen knife (10) & screwdriver (5)
Liam (10) with hunting knife (12)

Games were fun, quick and brutal. The zombies just kept on coming with me being the only player who didn't take a gun!

Lessons learnt:

• Sandra doesn’t need any weapons. Her job is to run around.
• Liam does suck, probably needs Derek to protect/ watch over him.
• Patrick with a baseball bat is gold.
• Found out what the hell the “Hide” action is (dropping to the ground behind a car to stop being shot at).
• Stay on mission and follow all the victory conditions (killing and/or collecting loot).

Scott (Trailape) also was running a large 28mm Napoleonics (Waterloo) game that looks fantastic:

 

 All in all a fun game - hoping to get more games in (don't we all).

Little Wars Melbourne 2018

Little Wars was on at Kingston Town Hall again this year, but this time on a Saturday. The event is billed as "Games for Gamers By Gamers", and features participation and demonstration games along with manufacturers and second hand stalls. Always a good day to play games, catch up with people and pick up a bargain or two.

More infomation here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/951046525052308/

I only played two games this year, a homebrew set of skirmish rules set in mythological Greece, but based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest. Wal and I managed to slay the Talos in game one, but struggled a little with the 'Children of the Hydra's Teeth' skeletons in games two. An interesting twist on the original, and a lot of fun.

Did a lot of catching up with fellow gamers, particularly some I hadn't seen in a while.

And finally did a bit of shopping, which I was pretty happy with:

• Some 15mm Battlefront Team Yankee T-72s and Leopards 2s
• A 15mm Peter Pig WWII German checkpoint and modern day TV crews
• The Right Bloody Mess (ARBM) book
• 6mm Baccus SYW camp elements and artillery

The ARBM was a surprise, such good quality and beautifully presented (plenty of colour!). Definitely worth picking up if the interwar period even vaguely interests you. A pretty good review here:
http://arbm1933.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-generous-review-on-lead-adventure.html

ARBM is a self published source book for gaming in an alternate 1930s Australia. It covers the lead up to the Australian (civil) War which starts in April 1933, and the major factions involved. It is a similar concept to A Very British Civil War.

The book is 282 pages, full colour, cloth-bound hardcover with dust jacket. You can get a copy ofrom Eureka Miniatures or directly from the author by emailing ARBM1933@iinet.net.au.

Anyway, looking forward to Little Wars next year already.

Last Game I Played - DBA and ADLG

Just a couple of photos from games I played today. The first was against Timur's relentless wall of medieval knights in DBA. He was running Later Crusader (IV/17) to my Mongol Conquest (IV/35) in another campaign game.

In the afternoon I played against Tyler in a game of  ADLG. Short review is I played poorly.

I fielded a Scythian (#77) list against Tyler’s Cyrenian Greek (#58). Lots of cavalry and light horse against his pike, spear and chariots. I failed tactically by charging forward with my wings while my mountain Indian ally stood still (rolled a ‘1’ for their first activation) for the whole game. Meant Tyler only had to face 2/3 of my force with everything he had.

Tyler's review was that it takes a while to get used to how much quicker you engage in ADLG than FOG (which is what I'm used to), and how decisive it can be once lines are stuck in. The idea that you'll have time to get your reluctant commander moving, and bring him up, might make sense if you're overestimating how many turns until the stabbing happens.

I think timing was a factor, but I have played enough games to not really be able to use this excuse (although first time with Cv/LH heavy army). Like every other set of rules, you’re rewarded for hitting your opponent with everything you’ve got at the same time. So yeah, will think about timing more, and maybe a different list. Particularly as I suspect the tournament in November will be populated by heavy chariot, pike and heavy spear as the lists are restricted to the ones in the Ancient and Classical periods from the rules.

Last Game I Played - Star Wars Miniatures

A game of Wizards of the Coast's classic (well from about 10 years ago) Star Wars Miniatures skirmish game with four 50 point squads in a shoot out in some Imperial palace. It was new for the other three players - but they enjoyed the fun element a lot. And the doors opening. And closing. A lot.

Flags of Jakalistan

I'm tinkering in taking part in a small Flames of War campaign with some wargaming friends using version 3 of the rules fielding a mix of platoons from the Arab-Israeli and Vietnam Wars source books. The slow-burn project stalled in the second half of last year (each of us painting a little bit between other projects), but one of the guys thought the Infantry Aces campaign might be an easy way for us to start actually gaming with these miniatures.

The rules for the campaign can be found on Battlefront's website here:
https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=2666

Instead of being set during World War Two, the Arab-Israeli or Vietnam wars, we wanted something in an imagi-nation that would allow a greater element of fun. Something in a Central Asian former Soviet Socialist Republic would give us a good mix of terrain, forces and equipment. I came up with suitably-sounding "Jakalistan" (using the first two letters of each of our names).

Jakalistan lies somewhere between the Caspian Sea and the Pamir Mountains. It's a micronation that has a semi-arid desert plain in the west, where the Jara River meanders into the Caspian Sea. There's snow-capped mountains in the centre of the country and jungles in the south east. This pretty much copies the campaign map in the link above.

If you have a country you should really have a flag. So the first thing I did was look at Soviet Republic flags (along with googling some other Soviet and communist flags people had designed online):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Soviet_Republics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_states

The Jakal Soviet Socialist Republic was created sometime in the 1950s - no one is exactly sure why this was, some say it was to give greater control to Moscow of the genetically modified pink quinoa crops that had been designed by Soviet scientists.

Flag of the Jakal Soviet Socialist Republic (~1952 - 1991)



The flag was the winning design after a competition was held, as it was in all the other Soviet Socialist Republics at this time. The blue in this design represents the Jara River, while the white represents Jakalistan's snow-capped mountains.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the First Secretary of the Presidium adopted a new flag to represent the peasants and workers of the country, who are said to be as tough as its mountains. The red was retained, representing the fields of quinoa.

Flag of the Republic of Jakalistan (1991 - present)



Things have unfortunately gone downhill in recent times. For a number of reasons the workers and peasants have split into two broad factions that are in open conflict with each other: the first supported by the democratic west, the other by eastern communist countries like China and Vietnam.

Workers faction flag/symbol



Peasant faction flag/symbol



Probably a bit simplistic, but I wanted to keep them useable as general symbols used during the current civil war.

Sources of inspiration of what I imagine life to be like in Jakalistan include Mitchell and Webb's 'Ambassadors':
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassadors_(TV_series)

Pretty funny in my opinion, but an aquired taste.

Wargaming wise I have already glued together some unused prepainted Il-2 that will proxy as Skyraiders from 'Brown Water Navy'. I'll probably repaint them with the worker's faction symbol.

Edit: and here's a campaign map using the Infantry Aces one from Battlefront:
https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=2666

Place names inspired by locations in Melbourne, Australia.

Last Game I Played - DBA

Got in a game with my repainted Central Asian miniatures, using them as Mongol Conquest (IV/35) against Lyle's Ilkhanid (IV/46). I lost the game, but I have now learnt power of LH being able to rear support other LH.

Last Game I Played - Bolt Action

A game where I managed not to kill a single thing!

Cancon Day 2 and 3 - DBA and Pike & Shotte

Day 2 saw me field my newly painted* Malays (list IV/37a) for the DBA tournament with 23 other players.

The format was a fixed army open competition - each player selecting their 12 element army with even dismounting elements fixed as either foot or mounted at the start of the tournament, playing six rounds based on a modified Swiss Chess format. For this, the second day of DBA, all armies were from the Dark Ages and Medieval Period (Books III and IV). The tournment on the Friday had been for armies from Books I and II.

My army consisted of 1 x El (Gen), 1 x El, 6 x 4Wb, 2 x 3Bw, 1 x Ps, 1 x LH.

The Canberra standard scoring system was followed:

• A win scored a flat 8 points
• A loss scored 1 point for ending the game plus the number of elements killed (capped at 3) with an extra point for killing a general or taking a camp
• A draw was scored as a loss but without the point for ending the game

In the first game I faced Emil's Ming (IV/73). Like a monkey I decided that if someone’s going to have to face the artillery it might as well be my elephants that rush it. My non-general elephant duly exploded across the battlefield, however the rest of my army won the game for me. I lost 3 elements to Emil’s 4, 8-4 win.

Game two didn't go so well, I lost 8-1 to a wall of knights in Josh's Medieval Scandinavian (IV/54b) army.

Game three made me learn some of the changed rules in version 3.0. Lost your general? Who cares! You can now continue to grind your opponent and pull a win out of what would've been a defeat in version 2.2. I had lost my general, but through the ability of my quick killing warband against my opponent's fast Samurai blade and hard flanking his cavalry with my bow I pulled out a 8-5 win.

The rest of the day pitted me against Asian (another Post Mongol Samurai (IV/59a) army was to follow) or medieval European armies.

At the end of the day I had won three, but also lost three games for an overall score of 29. Great to be able get that many games in, even if the weather was hot and humid.

The next day was spent wondering around looking at all the great games on display, doing a little shopping and talking to people.

I took part in a large Thirty Years' War game hosted by Adam, Lon and Mark for about 30 minutes.

Afterwards I did a little shopping. Final haul included a bunch of Knight Models’ Marvel blisters for $5-10 each (including the Avengers, The Thing, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, Brotherhood of Evil and Deadpool) , a couple of the Perry medieval plastic box sets, some MDF bases from Battlefield Accessories and a mix of Eureka stuff.

The drive back on the Sunday afternoon was long, but I'm glad I went. I miss everything that happens over three days of gaming.

* They'd only been in the lead pile for 10 or so years.

Cancon Day 1 - Tribal Maori

Last Thursday I drove up to Canberra for Cancon for the first time in six years. Cancon is the largest wargaming convention in Australia, and is held every Australia Day weekend:
https://cgs.asn.au/cancon/

On the way up Ara, Bruce, Lon and I (in two cars) stopped to have our packed lunch in Holbrook, NSW in the park next to HMAS Otway (S 59), an Oberon-class submarine of the Royal Australian Navy between 1968-94.

More on HMAS Otway can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Otway_(S_59)

First day of Cancon, on the Friday, I played in a Tribal tournament with Ara. It was small, only six of us, but was good to play against new players. I had spent the early part of January painting my Maori and some New Zealand themed miniatures.

Warbands were limited to 8-12 Honour points for units, skills and upgrades. The total Honour for each warband was 20 Honour. My warband list consisted of:

Tanehokahoka's Trust - 11 Honour Point Warband

Manaaki Te Heuheu - Chief (1 Honour)
x1 Long Weapon
'Skilled' skill

Tāmati - Shaman (0 Honour)
x1 Short Weapon
'The Shaman' skill

Ari - Hero (1 Honour)
x1 Short Weapon

Kai - Hero (1 Honour)
x1 Short Weapon

Footrot - Hero (3 Honour)
x1 Long Weapon
'Seasoned' skill

The Tui - Warriors (1 Honour)
x1 Long Weapon

The Pipiwharauroa - Warriors (1 Honour)
x1 Long Weapon

The Pukeko - Warriors (1 Honour)
x1 Short Weapon

Black Cap Berzerkers - Warriors (1 Honour)
x1 Long Weapon

Hairy Maclary and friends - Hunting Pack (1 Honour)

Here are some photos of the four games:

In Tribal, if two Jokers are played in the same Exchange during combat, this heralds
a bad omen - perhaps an earthquake shakes the ground or the sun is suddenly dimmed by a passing thunderhead. Aside from the normal outcome of the Exchange, all units on both sides of the battle take 1 wound immediately as morale falters and men flee.

This happened a number of times for me during the day...

 Below my hero Footrot with the Kiwi Laser flag:

A group photo of Schnitzel von Krumm (with a very low tum), Bitzer Maloney (all skinny and bony), Bottomley Potts (covered in spots), Hercules Morse (as big as a horse) and Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy. The miniatures are from Eureka Miniatures, expect for Hercules who's from Brigade Models' Celtos range (CLT-303a Hunting Hounds).

If you don't know who they are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_Maclary

A little chaotic, but it was good to get a fair number of games in and see some of the tactics employed in a larger game. I also came second which was nice.