15 February 2025

Dracula's America-Heart of Darkness

 


Last Friday myself and Luis got together for the 6th game in our DA Forbidden Powers campaign. There was a long delay to this game so the rules were pretty rusty for me. Have to "Soldier On" though.

This game takes place back in the swamp among some cyclopean ruins, how is that for Lovecraftian. There wrecked the usual deployment rules, but movement was quite restricted after turn 4 as Foul Morass condition were in play and then in turn 6 the swamp became Flooded. Victory was dependent on how many quadrants of the board you occupied at the end of the game. As usual Luis did a terrific job on the terrain.

Posses

The Game

Well it was an interesting game but a terrible game for me. There is not much question that Luis has a much better grasp of the rules than I, but I have to say that at times, the dice gods were just not smiling on me. I withdrew my forces at the end of turn 6, I had survived a Bottle Check at the end of this turn but I really had no chance of winning. The post game process did not favour me as I gained very little money and my only rifle armed main character, Azrael, died. I did, however, gain 2 veterans but it is going to be difficult to find the money to equip them. It looks like I might be having a sale before our next and final game!

10 February 2025

Lutzen-1813 The Battles for Germany

 

We played our second game in the GdA Battles for Germany his past weekend. Helge hosted this game on a 5x7' table. We had 6 players in total. Graham was CiC of the Prussians with David and Rob as his brigadiers, while Helge took the helm for the French with myself and Korrigan as his brigadiers. We had planned a 2 day event and when the players arrived Saturday morning the pregame had been played and the table was set up. 

Historically after the Russian defeat at Weisenfels, Wittgenstein, the overall allied commander, ordered Blucher's Prussians to split the advancing French force in half at Gross Gorschen. The Prussians advancing from the south east and centred their attack on the 4 villages around Gross Gorschen. Holding the area was Marshall Ney's 3rd corps with 5 Infantry Divisions and a Cavalry Brigade. Blucher was in overall command, but our game will be focused on the lead Prussian Division under General Zeithen with his 5 Infantry Brigades and 2 Cavalry Brigades. The French will be under the direct command of General Souham, whose division with 5 Infantry Brigades and 1 Cavalry Brigade who had direct responsibly for the defence of the area.
The OB for our Battle
The Initial Deployments at game start, each side kept a unit as an off table Reserve. Victory Conditions for the Prussians was to capture 3 of the 4 villages and the High Ground in the Northwest

The Prussians open their attack on Gross Gorschen with their other 2 brigades attacking the villages on each flank. They quickly followed with an attempt to outflank the French right flank with their cavalry reserve, The French responded by placing their infantry reserve on that flank.
This map shows the initial deployment areas for all 13 brigades at the start of turn 6. 

Photos

Initial Deployments, French in the foreground
The Prussian Attackers on the left
Not sure why the Prussians are in road column, but this was fixed. These troops were sent in to take Gross Gorschen
The French Defenders at Klein Gorschen
Getting in position at Rahna for the Prussian attack
The Prussians advance on their right
Turn 6, the Prussian have reached Gross Gorschen, it took multiple attacks to drive the French out at great cost
Yellow markers denote worn units, Pirch has expended many men in this attack but does eventually take the village
The French pull back, but Chemineau has done his job
The Prussians move in on Rahna
Brayer moves in to support Chasseraux
Turn 12, the Prussians left flank attack has crumbled.
Veran is holding Klein Gorschen at Turn 15, the Prussians have committed all their brigades but 2 French brigades are still essentially fresh..........the Prussians withdraw.

Summary

This game went quite well and we able to get in 15 turns in around 8 hours, by then it was obvious that the Prussians would not be able to capture 3 of the designated area in the next 5 turns. Their force had multiple worn units and their remaining units were too far from the last 3 objectives to reach them in 5 turns. At the end of turn 15, they only held Gross Gorschen and were still fighting to gain Klein Gorschen.  The Prussians had 8 points lost from Falters and Dispersals and 3 points for a total of 11 demoralisations while the French had 9 points. Not a Glorious Victory, but a Victory for the French. If I remember correctly this was the historical outcome. 

Next up is the French attack on the Russians in the Battle of Bautzen. This is tentatively scheduled in a little less than a month.

04 February 2025

SAGA Night-Age of Chivalry


Ten days ago I had my first game of the new SAGA Universe; Age of Chivalry. Korrigan kindly lent me his French army and I took on Luis's Free Companies. We played a scenario derived from the Book of Battles, Chaos.

Free Companies with a cannon.
The French with Jean D'arc
More French beautifully painted by Korrigan
A lot of back and forth.
Warlord on Warlord, nothing like having bodyguards. A French Victory!

I had a lot of fun with this game and the battle boards are quite interesting. All I have to decide now which Army I will pick, there are quite a few......but more about that later.


03 February 2025

Midgard-First Game

We had our first game of Midgard a couple of weeks at PY's. PY played the Romans while I played the Britons (actually Saxons). We used the first scenario from the book and decided to play on a fairly open table thus not having to utilise the terrain rules.

My troops are in the foreground, I had more warriors but no cavalry and fewer missile troops. 

The battle was quickly engaged.

A melee

Looks like my slingers are done for

Dastardly Romans

Well my reputation dropped to zero after the massive all sides melee in shown in the 2nd photo above, a nice victory for PY's Romans.

This is quite a nice ruleset and we finished our first game in a couple of hours with clear conclusion. The mechanisms were quite simple and both the rulebook and the QRS are well written. I am sure we missed things, I noticed after that I really did not use any of my army traits. We are hoping to have another game next week.

 

12 January 2025

Kato Kiyomasa

 

1562-1611

My primary hero for my Midgard warband will be Kato Kiyomasa. If interested click on the link which will bring you to his Wikipedia entry. 

I googled his name looking for painted images of him and for an unclear reasons in at least 2 of the images he has an orange cloak. Even though a little bright, I decided to go with this colour. The rest of the colours picked are conjectural.
He is carrying a Katakana Yari.
The standard mon for Kiyomasa was an open circle, I have seen them in both blue and black. The parallel bars as seen above is a mon used by unit in Kiyomasa's army. I got bored of the open circle.
Uma-Jirushi of Kiyomasa

I will generate his specific stats when I have a better sense of the ruleset. He certainly had some interesting attributes from what history tells us.

08 January 2025

Vietnam

I am slowly building up my Vietnam forces. From looking at the rulesets I am considering going forward with, I need to start to fill in some gaps. Chain of Command Vietnam requires a platoon aside as well as supports. I still not have received Nam68 "Tour of Duty" from Battlegroup so a little unclear in respect to figure requirement. I have a sense you need more VC/PAVN than USMC but I will have to see.

Most of my forces are from Rubicon, with some resin prints from the Gunslinger Kickstarter. I am not really enamoured of the Gunslinger figures, they are a little too heroic for me. The PAVN figures are not as  bad as  the US figures. If needed, I may buy another box of Rubicon USMC. I did need some specialised PAVN figures as well as some civilians so I recently purchased some Empress metal figures. They are nice, but maybe a little smaller than the Rubicon. 

The M48 from Rubicon was a little pricey so I bought a STL (Cults 3D) for $6.95 and the model printed well. I did have a lot of problems with the supported version which printed well in 5 parts except for the fact that no holes were placed which turned into a nightmare with the unfixed resin. I drilled holes in the model but it kept on weeping resin like a large carbuncle......lesson learned! I might print another turret because I still  having some problems with it.





Next up, I will do some civilians and I also have a PAVN Mortar team from Empress. I was hoping to put on my first Vietnam game at our club's games day at the end of January but unfortunately I will not have enough figures for a CoC Vietnam ruleset. I still do not have the POD Nam 68 game from Battlegroup, and I will not have time to familiarise myself with a new set of rules. 

04 January 2025

Norwegian Platoon and 2025 Gaming Plans

My last partially completed figures, that I wanted to complete by the end of 2024, were my Norwegian platoon for WWII Chain of Command ruleset. These figures are almost all 3D Printed in resin. You can read about their manufacturer, organisation as well as painting scheme in 2 previous posts. I had painted almost 2 squads but I had all the Leaders, Supports and two more squads to paint to complete the platoon. I finished these on December 31st but by then the New Year festivities were starting to catch up with me, thus the delay in putting them on the blog.

Complete Platoon, the newly painted figures have yet to have snow on their bases.
Colt M29 MMG Team
Medic, Forward Observer, Sniper, 2 Senior Leaders and King Haakon!

Well it has been a pretty successful painting month, I have been isolated in the United Sates for the last month with another 2 weeks to go before I can get back to my native country. I am working on various playing aids/terrain pieces now, including for CoC, WaC, Midgard as well GdA.


2025 Aspirations

I usually do not do this, as really I play too many different rulesets now, have too many armies and warbands and have too much terrain. I have been really starting to thin things out so I basically have been subtracting rather than adding but there are some forces I would like to paint and rulesets I would like to add.

Vietnam

Still have not decided on a ruleset here, I already have several but I am looking at 2 that are still in development or I have yet to receive. A Vietnam version of CoC is being developed by John Savage, the author of What a Cowboy. He really does first class work, I am not sure if this version will be ultimately official but it looks like a lot of fun. I am waiting to receive Battle Group's latest ruleset Nam 1968. It sounds interesting and I have a sense that it is aimed at squad actions rather than platoon sized games. I am more attracted to the smaller actions but I will have to see. I still have to paint maybe 15-20 figures for a Platoon sized force for Vietnam but it is a nice project.

Midgard

This is an exciting new game which covers both historical and fantasy battles from the Classical Period to the late Middle Ages. I have a lot of figures that I can use for this including the Dark Ages in Europe as well as the Crusades. My LoTR figures which will be good for fantasy. I am also putting together a Sengoku era force for the game. Semi-official force list are presently being developed for Warring States gaming with the ruleset. This will be a long term project, as I have quite few figures to paint but I am attracted by the uniformology and well as the tactics of the period. I have printed off quite a few movement trays which the ruleset requires and am just terraining them now. 

SAGA Age of Chivalry

We should be receiving the rulebook within the month. I still have not decided on a warband or painted any figures but I see many of the players in our club already have several armies, so I am hoping to borrow some in the short term for gaming.

Gaming

I am going to try restart some games with rulesets I have not played for a while, almost exclusively from the TFL stable of games. These include Picketts Charge, Kiss me Hardy as well as Algernon Pulls it Off. 

I will of course continue CoC, GdA, WaC , M&T, Congo and SAGA as well as the Alternate History games I play including Pulp Alley, Draculas America and Carnevale. 


That should keep me busy for 2025!