Carnevale-Acquisition

 

Finally I have caught up, with a report from a week ago when myself and Antoine got together at my place for our second game of Carnevale. We decided again to play a scenario from the main rule book, called Acquisition. We both had 75 Ducat factions.

Strigoi

Blood Crone

Common Strigoi

Romani

Strigoi Priest

Nosferatu

Thrall

The Guild

Capodecina 

Recruiter 

Barber 

Pilferer 

2 Citizens

I did not take a lot of photos, but here are 3.

Terrain overview, I started in the lower right with Antoine starting in the upper left.

Most of the action centred on this bridge as well as the adjacent canal

This was an interesting melee.

It was another fun game, Antoine definitely had to coach me along again but maybe a little less. The Agendas certainly add a nice element to the game. I liked also that we could capture objectives and move away with them to try to protect them from the opposing faction. There is still a lot to learn, especially all the spell combinations. My faction seemed to have some synergy and I was lucky to win the game 5-3 points. Hopefully our next game might not be too far into the future.

Dracula's America

 

A little over a week ago myself, Luis and Korrigan gathered at Luis's place for my second game of Dracula's America. This would be the first time my figures would see the table so I was looking forward to the game with some anticipation.

I believe we each played with a base Posse of 7 figures; Luis played the Skinwalker Tribes, Korrigan the Dark Confederacy and myself the Twilight Order. We all had interesting add-ons either through the Summon ability or Hired Guns. I am not sure what exactly everyone had but Luis was able to change a couple of his figures into monsters, Korrigan had a Shade which was able to summon Revenants and I had a Seraphim.

Luis had set up a very nice Western table with plenty of buildings, no swamp this time. This made it quite a bit easier for me to play the game as movement was much less complicated and I could focus more on the base mechanics of the game. I appreciated Luis doing this.

A lot happened during the game so I can really not put together an accurate report but here are some photos.

Overview of the terrain, I started in the foreground while Korrigan started on the left with Luis on the right.

I deployed my Posse in 2 groups.

My Hired Gun was useless, as an Eldritch Investigator.

The approaching Dark Confederacy

Luis's Skinwalkers who actually appear to be Mexicans!

I found this multiple combat quite different in how it is played, there were a lot of somewhat unusual mechanics, like the ability to shoot into it by uninvolved characters. I also never was sure who were the involved figures. Maybe a little complicated for a simplistic set of rules. But I suspect it was me.

I am not sure how many turns we played and the game ended a little earlier than planned so there was no winner. I can say that the game was quite good in that I have a much better grasp of the rules than I had going into the game.

The ruleset is cool and I like the background, the game is quite different than what I have played in the past except for maybe SAGA. This is definitely not a simulation but a game, I suppose that should be self evident as it is Alternate History. I came to appreciate that the mechanics were quite simple and at times one could say simplistic in their application. This is quite novel for me, as certainly most games I play are simulations of historical battles and thus have realistic mechanisms. Certainly, Dracula's America is not that. I have always looked at SAGA as a game as well but with some replication of Dark Age tactics. It is interesting that I have picked up 2 games in the past couple of months that are pure games, but I can say that I enjoy playing them both. My next post will be on my second game of Carnevale, indeed another game but with quite a bit more depth and complexity.

Thanks for hosting the game Luis and the pizza and to Korrigan for joining in.

What a Cowboy- High Noon

Last Sunday myself and Graham got together at the Abyss for a game of What a Cowboy. As this was only Graham's only second game I decided to go with the High Noon scenario from the rulebook as well as 4 characters per side with 2 gunslingers and 2 shootists each. Each side had a character with a Shotgun and a Winchester. I also find it a little simpler to not have a lot of buildings (not that I have any), so the game was set up in the desert. There was lot of cover though as well as the ability to get in an elevated position.

Well, unfortunately it was a very lopsided game. Graham had the worst dice throwing I have seen in sometime. That is just how it goes sometimes. Not withstanding, the game did go very smoothly with really nothing but very brief pauses to check something in the rulebook. It really is quite a well written rulebook, and a fun game. I am confident that Graham will play again.

Fire and Fury: Battle of Kernstown

I had another Fire and Fury ACW game a week ago. We gathered at Graham's house for a full day of gaming, there was myself and Steve playing for the Union while Jean-Jacques and Graham were the  Rebels. The scenario was based on the first Battle of Kernstown, and was focused on Tyler's attack on the fortified position held by the Confederates. 

As usual, Graham had set up an excellent table. The game was played with what I believe were mostly 15mm Blue Moon figures and it was quite a display.

The Union approach is in the foreground with Tyler's brigade in road formation trying to get into battle line. You can see J-J getting his rebels ready behind the stone wall.

The Union supports

The CSA move in some cannon to confront the Union troops coming from their left

The Union approach

The confederates hold firm, the remnants of Tyler's brigade break to their right

The Union supports finally get through the woods.

Well myself and Steve lost, as Tylers brigade was essentially wiped out before I could break the CSA. We played about 8-9 turns of 12, but it was clear that the Union would not make their victory conditions.

I quite enjoyed this game and became more appreciative of the ruleset. I will compare it to Pickett's Charge. There was a couple of idiosyncrasies in my first game in respect to unit size but these were not so obvious in this game. Once you get a handle on the two sided QRS, the game runs pretty smoothly. I have asked Graham if it would be ok if I port the OB and scenario to Pickett's Charge and run a game for comparison. Thanks to Graham for hosting supper and Steve for driving from Ottawa and Jean-Jacques for coming from Sorel-Tracy.

SAGA: Anglo-Saxons vs Jomsvikings

I am a bit behind in posting my reports of games, this is a game that took place about 10 days ago with my friend Pierre-Yves. Unfortunately, blogger is becoming increasing dysfunctional at times which make it difficult to upload photos. Some of the details are now a bit foggy, but what I remember is that it is one of the best games of SAGA, I have had in a while....................despite losing!

Jomsvikings

Warlord

3 points of Hearthguard

3 points of Warriors

Anglo-Saxons

Warlord

2.5 points of Hearthguard

2.5 points of Warriors

1 point of Bow-armed Levy

Unfortunately, I have forgotten some of the details of the setup but we used the French Scenario pack for SAGA ( I do not believe it exists in English). There a 6 scenarios in the pamphlet and I suspect most of them exist in the main rulebooks, we played the "Les combat du chefs". It was a good scenario. 

I really have forgotten the details now, but I did go with large units all being 10 figures aside from the Levy which were 12.

The Battle Line, with the Jomsviking on the right.

Jomsvikings

Anglo-Saxons

I played a fairly aggressive game initiating the first attack on the my right

Really did not much with my Levy

This dis not go well as you can see below.

Final line after 6 turns.

The final score was 16 to 10 for the Jomsvikings. I enjoy playing the Anglo-Saxons and I will stick with them for a while in Age of Vikings games.

Carnevale

In 2017, I bought into the Carnevale kickstarter from TTCombat. From what I understand, TTCombat had just bought the rules that had been released some years earlier from the company who had launched them. They revamped the rules, added a lot of figures and developed a lot of terrain and then launched the Kickstarter.

At the time, I painted some of the figures and sort of forgot about the whole thing aside from pulling out some of the mdf terrain and using it for Pulp Alley. I recently noted that one of the Facebook members of Soirée Peinture was posting some photos of the Carnevale figures, I decided to investigate and found out that it was Antoine, one of the members of our newly founded Montreal Historical Wargaming Club. After a brief discussion we decided to get together for a game two weeks ago at the Abyss.

Gangs

The Guild (Antoine)

Capodecina

Baroni

Recruiter

Gondolier

Citizen w/dog

Gondola

Strigoi (John)

Blood Crone

Strigoi Priest

2 Romani

2 Nosferatu 

Gondola

The Game

We played The Guild scenario from the main rulebook, this is an Attacker/Defender Setup. Points were gained for eliminating your opponent's characters as well capturing objectives. Here are some photos of the game, it was a while ago so I do not remember all the details. It was close!

I had a lot of fun with this game, and will definitely look forward to our next game. I have already painted 2 new figures for my Strigoi gang, I also have a Rashaar gang which I am sure will see the light of day soon enough. Thanks to Antoine for introducing me to the game and having thoroughly reviewing the ruleset before our game.