Carnevale

Two Sundays ago, I got together with Antoine who I have been playing Carnevale with for about a year. He introduced me to two of his friends Paul and Nic. They were great people to game with and we had a 4 player game. There were 2 factions of Rashaar (myself and Nic), a Vatican faction (Paul) and Antoine's Guild faction.

The Acquisition scenario came from the main rulebook with each of us having 75 points. Points were awarded for Agendas and there were 2 Objectives on the board. Some photos follow.

It was a closely fought game with Antoine winning. It was a lot of fun and I will look forward to the next game.

CoC Training Night at the Abyss

 

Two Fridays ago our club had a training session for the TFL ruleset Chain of Command. We had 4 players, Dan who had played under 10 games, Gabriel and Julian who had played under 5 games and Artin who was just playing his second game. We set up two tables and I have to say I was quite happy that Graham showed up as well to help games-master. We played in 28mm so I had no need to bring any of my own troops, I did bring a couple of mats and some terrain. We had to utilise the Abyss collection of terrain for some buildings, walls and hedges. Each player brought his own platoons and there were some very nice figures on the table.

Game 1

Soviets vs Italians 1942

For this game we used 2 fan made platoon lists. Regular platoons, the Italians fielded a Motorcycle platoon, while the Soviets used a standard mid-war rifle platoon. We played scenario 2 from the rulebook but played down the long axis of the table. The Soviets were the defenders. They bought an ATR Team and the Wrath of the Gods pre-game barrage. I am not sure about the Italians but they did have an AFV.

Game 2

Canadiens vs German Fallschirmjägers 1945

This game utilised the lists from the main rulebook both regular platoons. Again scenario 2 along the long axis of the table. The FJ were defending agains the Canadiens. I am not sure what supports the Germans had but the Canadiens had a Churchill.

Patrol Phase

1942 Soviet Union, Italians to the right

1945 Normandy, Canadians in the foreground

Action Shots

L-R Dan, Gabriel, Julian and Graham. I did not get a shot of Artin

Summing Up

I was very thankful for the players showing up and I hope all had a good time. As noted above I am especially grateful to Graham for coming, there was no way I could manage 2 games with fairly new players. The Soviets won their game so kudos to Artin in his 2nd CoC outing. This game finished first so I was able to shift my attention to the Normandy game, which was eventually won by the Germans. Two victories to the defenders.

Post game observations sent on to the players: 

I thought every one did quite well and there was a basic understanding of the rules. I believe the Patrol Phase went well on both tables, there are a lot of nuances to this pregame which take a long time to learn, Certainly I am still learning. A critical part of this in the pregame sequence is picking your supports after you see the terrain and the JOPs have been placed. Your choice of supports is based on where you are going to deploy and where your opponent might deploy. The terrain is a big deal here, as it is your cover as you advance or defend.

I believe the mechanics are pretty simple and all you really need to play the game is the 6 page QRS and with a games-master there is really no need to refer to the rulebook. The biggest weakness as I saw was an understanding of the shooting rules but more so how it is applied to a target in respect to shock. This game is all about shock and how it contributes to Force Morale, when checking for successes in respect to hits, this has to be done by teams (except in cases of platoons where there are no teams-Soviets). In this manner you can kill a team while applying shock to a whole section/squad; kills are not shared but shock is, a somewhat difficult concept to appreciate when you start playing.

Both games had a lot of entrenched firing back and forth, which is a little boring to play but this is perfectly normal when first learning the game.

SAGA Night: Seljuks vs Welsh

SAGA Montréal

I had an opportunity to join in at the most recent SAGA night at the Abyss hosted by SAGA Montréal. There were 10 players so 5 games were put on. I am not 100% sure, but I believe there were 2 warbands of Welsh, Normans and Jomsvikings; Norse-Gaels, Normans, Skraelings, Vikings and Anglo-Danes were also there. My Seljuks made their first appearance. 

Unfortunately, it seems the action was so intense that very few photos were taken, including from my own game against Benoit's Welsh. Here are couple of photos from our game, I used the same composition as I had used couple of nights before in my game against Graham's Anglo-Saxons. Our game was toughly fought out and I believe Benoit edged me by 1 point, so a draw in SAGA terms.

Here are some photos from some of the other games pinched from our clubs Discord server.

Skraelings vs Jomsvikings

Normans vs Vikings

Hopefully I will get a few more photos when we have our next outing on October 24.

I should note this is all in practice for the SAGA Montréal Grand Melée, all the details are provided in the banner.

TFL on Soirée Peinture

What a Cowboy Campaign: Showdown in Los Nachos

Last Wednesday, we saw the start of our much anticipated What a Cowboy campaign written by Eero, my friend in Finland. We are the first group to playtest. Eero's club in Finland is going to start sometime in early October. 

The campaign can be found here, the background story has been very well fleshed out and I cannot do a better job than Eero so download the campaign pamphlet and have a look at the intro. Suffice to say though that the campaign documents a generational  feud between two families, the Makinens and the Taverniers. The Taverniers are rich and the Makinens are poor, their father Jake Makinen has been murdered and all the property has been stolen. The sons were driven into exile in Mexico and now have returned to the New Mexican territory to seek the return of what is theirs and to find out who killed the patriarch of the family.

We advertised on the Montreal Historical Wargaming Club Discord and found 5 players. Most games will be hosted at PY's place, and hopefully we will get to play once or twice a month. To set up each game and to track progress we use the Club's Voice Discord Channel. This seems to be working well.

We got together a couple of weeks ago to generate our characters and also to see who has the initiative. Each posse has a set of player characters as well as non player characters generated by the campaign. The NPC's will vary according to the scenario played. I should note that there are 10 tables to the campaign and after some dice rolling and discussion, the Makinens got the initiative in the first turn. They decided to  try to take over the Tainted Desert, the Taverniers decided to challenge them and won a dice roll to accomplish this.

The Players

Makinens

Matt Makinen-Gunslinger

Justin Makinen-Greenhorn

Bubba Carlsberg-Shootist

Hector el Borracho-Greenhorn

Tuco-Shootist

Taverniers

Max Briggins-Shootist

George Marrison-Shootist

Justin MaBoots-Shootist

Billy Bob Jackson-Gunslinger

Elmo Röid-Shootist

Game Photos

The Tainted Dessert, the Makinen's started in the foreground.

The Players ( I will get a photo of PY aka Elmo Röid in our next game): The Makinen Gang Gabriel aka Hector El Borracho, John aka Tuco; The Tavernier Gang Dan aka Billy Bob Jackson and Graham aka Justin MaBoots.

The Summing Up

Well the first game was awarded to the Makinens who out-gunned and captured two of the Tavernier gang; Max Briggins and Elmo Röid. They have thus taken over the Tainted Desert, increasing the income from their 2 sheep farms as well as their derelict ranch. They questioned their prisoners but it quickly became clear the Taverniers were not involved in the murder of Jake Makinen. The Makinens who were poorly armed will now be able to arm up for their next encounter in this fascinating and really cool campaign.