Dracula's America-Hunt for the Necronomicon

 

Friday week, myself and Luis got together for the next instalment in Dracula's America campaign. It has been enormous fun and I feel I am finally getting a grasp on the rules.

This was game 4 in the campaign "Hunt for the Necronomicon". The scenario was set on the edge of the swamp. At the end of the last scenario both the Cultists and the Nephilim discovered that one of the men captured by the DeepFolk in the swamp was an author who was in search for this forbidden book. Both posses raced back to Sweetwater in order to track down this tome.

As you can see in the below photo, Luis has set up another superb table for this game.

The Nephilim started out in the left corner while the Cultists started out in the right.  This game was scored a little differently with no points for killing your opponent or any of the entities that might appear. The Necronomicon was hidden in one of the 3 building up the centre and victory would be to the side who had the most characters in or within 1" of the building at the end of the game. 

I had added a Kris Knife to Azrael's weapon, which made it quite useful in summoning the Seraphim who easily took out this entity!

Most of the action was around the centre building with Cultists controlling the far building and Nephilim controlling the building on the swamp edge. 

We got in the full 8 turns but at the end the Cultists had 4 characters controlling the building with the Nephilim having 3. Third victory to Luis...Well done.

Another great game, again quite close. I made a couple of errors that could have left a draw, but on to the next game which I am hoping to play next Tuesday week.

SagaNight

One of the members of our Wargaming Club, David K, set up and independent games night featuring the ruleset SAGA. This has been quite successful, attracting 8-10 players for each evening. This was the second event but the first one I could attend. I believe he is trying to schedule the games night once per month.

I believe there were 10 players initially signed up for this game which was scheduled a week ago. Eight showed up, so 4 games were played. David had decided that the Age of Vikings would be features for this games night. 

I decided to bring my Anglo-Saxon warband, they have been unsuccessful in the past but I decided to reconfigure them and give them another try. All Warbands were 6 points and this is what I went with:

Anglo-Saxons

Alfred

3 units of Warriors

2 units of Bow-Armed Levy

Facing of against me were David C's Warband:

Vikings

Warlord

Berserskers

4 units of Hearthguard

Warriors

Quite a mis-matched force as you can see, I went with 2 units of 12 Warriors and 2 units of 12 Levy. David went with a unit of Berserkers, 2 units of Hearthguard and 2 units of Warriors.

We played the Chaos method which generated a very interesting game as follows:

March Column

Cautious

Fog

Target

Rough Ground

I was a bit put off with the Fog, this imposed a M distance on shooting for the first 3 turns and the game was only 5 turns, and here I had selected a shooting force!

The approaching Vikings, Hearthguard one and all

Another unit of Hearthguard, with some Berserkers in the background. My Levy bowmen wait until they get in M, damn fog!

Warriors close shields

The Warriors have moped up the Hearthguard and the Berserkers, and my Levy advance to my left flank......

......to support my Warriors against the advancing Hearthguard and Warriors.

A lot of casualties were taken by both sides and it looks like the Vikings have been able to turn the tide. But the Viking Warlord is exposed and my bowmen have climbed the hill are now in range.

A few missed photo but the Levy Bowmen put 3 fatigues on the Viking Warlord and charged down the hill for the kill. Game over!

This was a great game. I thought I had it in the bag after 2 turns as I had taken out 2 units of Hearthguards, but David fought back and in the 4th and 5th turns it was obvious that the game could have gone any way. Well my Anglo-Saxons finally won, I will give this organisation another go.

CoC in 28mm-A Very Short Game

 

A week ago, I got together with Julian at the Abyss for our Wednesday Gamesnight. Interest in gaming appears to wan in the summer, so it was just two of us for this game. Julian previously had a couple of games of CoC and wanted to get some of his 28mm Warlord Games figures on the table. This was a bit of a challenge for me as I game CoC in 20mm, but fortunately an early club project was to paint up the Band of Brothers boxsets from WL games. We leave these at the Abyss for use as members. 

This actually worked quite well and I was easily able to put together a German Volksgrenadier Sturm platoon as well as a US Airborne platoon. We were quite short on supports but we had some AFV's that I had printed so when I calculated the Force Ratings we could take one of these each.

I auto diced for supports before the game, we were playing the Attack and Defend scenario from the main rulebook. The Germans were the Attacker with 8 support points and the American defenders ended up 7 points after FR adjustments. I was playing the Germans and took a PzIV as well as an adjutant while Julian took a M10 as well as a Medic.

Here are the JOP with the PM's left on that table. I believe Julian got the better of me in the Patrol Phase as he got 2 JOP's in the compound and one Close to the forest on his left flank.

A pretty solid defence position with stone wall and some huts. I have no 28mm terrain but was able to cobble together some stuff that looked WWII from the extensive collection of terrain available at the Abyss.

Well I forgot to take any photos of the game as I was pretty busy clarifying the rules.

We both placed our vehicles early and exchanged fire twice, I hit his M10 with my PzIV first putting 2 shock on the M10 and killing the driver. The M10 comander in the next turn rallied off one shock and fired back. Ten AP vs 6 Armour, 5 net hits my PzIV exploded and my FM dropped to 4! I was able to get my LMG squad around to the US left flank in the forest but could not get them into position to fire before Julian got his whole platoon in hard cover behind the stone wall on overwatch. He was still at a FM of 10 while i had only 4 command dice. I withdrew.

V for Victory

A week ago, I had one of my regular games with my friend PY. We usually play at his house, so he generally will suggest a game to me. This time he suggested V for Victory a new game from Studio Tomahawk set in WWII. Click on the link and you find a QRS and a FAQ which will give a sense of the game.

I have been a little dubious of this game as most of Studio Tomahawks games are semi-historical or alternate historical in nature. I also would not call them simulations but rather games. As anyone who reads my blog knows, my main WWII game is Chain of Command. This is very, very unlikely to change. But I do enjoy Studio Tomahawk games and after rulesets from Too Fat Ladies there is no question that I really favour games from Studio Tomahawk, such as SAGA, Muskets & Tomahawks, Dracula's America and Congo. All great games, so I was quite willing to try V for Victory.

A lovely table as usual by PY.

I am not a big fan of markers, but these worked well.

I played a British Airborne unit and PY played the Germans

As you can see, it is a pretty small scale game with maybe 20 figures per side. we did not play with heavy weapons teams or AFV's. But I would think that the game scales up well.

Each unit has different attributes and the quality of the weapons defines the type of dice used. Negative attributes burn dice meaning that they drop down a level (d8 to d6) or that you lose a dice.

The activation method is very similar to Congo (almost exact I would say) with each player having a hand of cards with a certain number and type of actions on each card. Each card is also numbered which defines priority in play. Once each player exhausts their hand, the turn ends. I like this activation method. I should say that Dracula's America has somewhat of a similar method. Muskets and Tomahawks also uses cards but in a different way with each card activating specific unit type, either yours or your opponents.

I did eke out a victory which is unusual as PY usually beats me!

I have to say I quite enjoyed the game and would play it again. I am not planning to paint up any troops for it and have no plans to buy the ruleset except for maybe the book itself. It comes with a deck of cards as well as markers which are all well thought out. If someone sets it up at the club we have a full US Airborne platoon as well as a German Grenadier platoon which will work well for the game.

Charleroi!

Last Sunday I had another game of GdA from the Hundred Years sourcebook. I had the game at my place with Helge, another member of our wargaming club, with whom I had yet to meet. He had not played GdA before but he has quite an impressive 28mm Napoleonic collection, probably one of the biggest collections I have seen (https://www.youtube.com/@WargamingWorkshop)

Helge had not played GdA before but I have to say that he was well prepared having gone through the rules very carefully before the game. 

I played the French coming from the left and Helge played the Prussians coming from the right. This was a smallish battle with just 4-5 brigades per side.

The French advance on the village of Gilly, there was one central BUA with a bridge enclosed within the village. The river could only be crossed by artillery and cavalry at this bridge and a ford to the right. There was a swamp to the left of the village which prevented infantry from crossing the river. Helge had set up his Prussians well making it a bit of a challenge.

As usual, I took very few photos and all the following photos are post game snaps.

Some ammunition caissons, I painted.

I did get some of my troops across the table, but not this battalion.

I was successful in getting my cavalry across the rivers and was able to take out the Prussian cavalry, I almost flanked the Prussian infantry but we hit 10 turns (the maximum allowed by the scenario).

I was unable to drive the Prussians out of Gilly, despite multiple attempts.

I did get one battalion across the river.

Well it was a great game, we did spend a lot of time in the rulebook. We again had problems with the BUA rules and screwed up some of the melees, especially with the cavalry. I also discovered that I need to do a bit more work on the movement rules, with which I am a little sloppy.

It was a fun game though and I was quite happy to introduce a new player to the ruleset, expanding our core Napoleonic group to 10 players. Helge has a real eye for detail and will be a great addition.

I should note that Helge did win the game as I failed on the Victory conditions of taking the village or causing the stipulated damage on his troops. Well played!

Some AB Napoleonics

 

Over the last month, I have painted a Command stand for the French as well as battalion of Wûrttembergers. I had ordered the Wûrttemberg figures by accident when I placed an order with Eureka. 

I recently played a game of GdA, centred around the Battle at Gilly in the lead up to Waterloo. This is one of the very few later battles that Napoleon took personal command so I needed a little Napoleon.

I wonder if anyone could point out the anomaly in respect to the composition of this stand..

Wûrttemberg was part of the Confederation of the Rhine which joined with Napoleon in 1809. They were thought of as excellent soldiers.

IR Nr.4 with pink facings.

I believe that might be it for at least awhile with Napoleonics, although occasionally I need a couple of more skirmish stands, so we will have to see.