Carnevale Revisited!

 

I had my first game of Carnevale in 2 years 10 days ago at the Abyss. Our gaming club has a Carnevale night once a month on a Friday and this was the first Friday that I happened to be in Montreal that coincided with this night for quite a long time.

Carnevale has a devoted following in Montreal with I suspect at least a dozen regular players. Antoine, one of the club members, has done a great job introducing multiple players to the game. He has put an enormous amount of work into 3d printing terrain, painting it and contributing it to the Carnevale group. He has also taught many players the game. They have been so successful that I was shocked to see Carnevale merchandise on the shelves of L'abyss.

I had bought into Carnevale several years ago with their Initial Kickstarter, this was at the time when TTCombat first took over the game in the summer of 2017. When I received the starter set I just shelved it.  I connected with Antoine in 2023, who I was shocked to find out had Carnevale collection and knew how to play the game. I believe we got in 4 games in the next couple of years but none for the last 2. During that period I had put together 3 Factions which all got some table time. All I had left from the original kickstarter was a box of The Gifted: Commedia dell'Arte. I subsequently purchased a few extra figures and asked my friend Graham to paint them, they are terrific figures and I just knew that I could not do them justice. You can see Graham's paint job here. 

Anyway, I wanted to get The Gifted on the table for some time and I finally got a chance. There was not a big turn out, they usually have 5 setups but on this Friday there were just 2, Antoine teaching a new player Guillaume-Manu how to play and Genessee and myself. Genessee was a great teacher and she has one of the largest collections of Carnevale figures I have seen, all painted brilliantly by her boyfriend.

I will not go into the game itself but just post some photos, I was playing against the Strigoi. It was a fun game and I lost badly but became re-acquainted with the rules and got some sense on how to play The Gifted!

Strigoi vs The Gifted

Strigoi vs The Guild (guess!)

Sharp Practice-French Indian War

 

A couple of weeks 4 of us got together are the Abyss for a game of Sharp Practice. This was my turn to host. I had only arrived in Montreal late the night before so I did not have much time to put things together. This was made complicated by the fact that I was a bit unclear on what figures I had. I also had little time to put a terrain together. But I go things together that morning and fortunately Graham offered to pick me up.

Myself and William took the English while Rob and Graham took the Canadiens. We decided to play the first scenario in the book which is a simple attack on each on each with the goal of mutual destruction.

The setup was a bit rudimentary

But there was lots of action

Myself and William surveying the British attack

Thanks to Rob for some nice photos. I thought the game went pretty well, I am not sure if we did the forest los, movement and cover correctly. I just have not had a chance to check. But overall I was happy how the game went, it was quite bloody and there was lots of shooting, tactical movement and combat. If I remember correctly the British won the game.

An aside:

We played another FIW game on Sunday with 4 of the board members of our club, basically the same terrain and same troops (but with a different organisation) using the Muskets and Tomahawks rules. 

I forgot to take any photos and this time myself and Graham took the Brits while Iannick and Luis took the French. The game are differently mechanistically for sure but I enjoyed both of them. I think the organisation is a little more straight forward with SP but M&T has a lot of flexibility in organisation but a slightly more novel mechanic. Both are card activated but the card playe

d can be chosen to a certain extent in M&T. SP does cover more periods and might be a little more narrative in a sense....if you want to be Flashman in the First Afghan War or Sharp in in the sack of Badajoz, SP is your game. But this does not diminish the command nuances of M&T. And I see that Studio Tomahawk has just released an ACW supplement Kepis and Bayonets.

Five Parsecs from Home

 

Yes, this is an Historical Wargaming site. But I like Science Fiction especially Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury. I have been looking for something to play solo here in Salem. Someone on our Wargaming Discord suggested Five Parsecs from Home. I had a look and said why not. I bought the rulebook, it is quite nice and detailed, but then I had to find some figures. 

For the crew, I decided to go with some retro figures and after a good look around with a lot of good advice from the members of the club, I decided on Hydra Miniatures. They had a lot of great figures but after a good look, I decided to go with the Retro Raygun Galacteers. 

For the enemy, I went with the Shasvastii from the Infinity Universe. I was hoping to buy them from the Abyss but they did not have this specific type in stock. They were a little difficult to assemble and paint in comparison to the Hydra Miniatures but it all ended up good.

And finally I needed some terrain. After a look around Battle Systems seem to have some nice kit so I bought Trader Encampment box set. The terrain is cardboard but was really of good quality and with that and the included map, I seem all set.

Here are some photos.

I have started my first adventure but more about that later.

What a Cowboy: High Noon

I recently put on a game of What a Cowboy at one of our club meetings. There does not appear to be a lot of interest in western skirmish games at our club although three of our members have put on regular games at our club as they have both the terrain and the figures. Several games of Deadman's Hand as well as What a Cowboy have been put on in the past.

I did feel fortunate to attract both William and Gavin to have a game, neither do I think have played this genre before. I put together 2 posses consisting of 2 characters each, Blondie led one posse while Tuco lead the second. I made the characters vanilla and there was one gunslinger with a Six Shooter and one Shootist with a Winchester per side. 

I just took a couple of photos, we played out in the desert and took the High Noon scenario. 

I think the game went pretty well, I was a bit rusty on the rules, as aside from one game which I was a participant in a couple of months ago, I had not put a game on in a couple of years. I am hoping Gavin and William had a good time they both said that they will play the ruleset again. I think with 2 players, I would go with 4 characters per side next time. I had a good read of the rules the day after the game and I had done better than I thought I would. Most mistakes were made with the dodging rules and I really did not have a good handle when characters are forced off the table.

 

Saga: Battle of Stamford Bridge

 

Last Thursday Korrigan put on a Saga Extraganza for our monthly tThursday Saga Night. We had 3 simultaneous games, two of which featured the final 2 battles of King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

I played in the Battle of Stanford Bridge and commanded the king's Anglo-Saxon forces, I was assisted by William who commanded the Earl of Mercia's Anglo-Saxon forces and Michel who commanded the Earl of Northhumberland's Anglo-Danes. We faced off against Luis who commanded Harald Hardrada's Viking force assisted by Eric and François commanding Tostig's and Eystein Orre's Vikings. 

We played the Saga Epic rules at 16 points aside. The main Warlord had 6 point warbands and the ancilliary Commanders had 4 point warbands. The game was 8 turns, and at the same time while we were playing the Battle of Hastings took place with 6 other players. 

Harold Godwinson in the foreground with the Earl of Mercia on his left and the Earl of Northumberland on his right. Harald Haradada in the centre with Tostig on his left and Orre on his right.

I was quite confident that Luis would send in his Viking Hearthguard first. Mercia waited for Hardrada to attack and caused some damage with his Saxon levies...never underestimate the Saxon shieldwall. Harold's warriors were sent in and drove the Viking Hearthguard back.

The Viking made another attack but without much success, by turn 6 Tostig's force was demoralised and the Anglo-Saxon defence of the bridge remained solid.

The Earl of Northumberland's Anglo-Danes had a lot of back and forth at the ford of the River Derwent but was able to keep the Vikings on the far side of the river, news of Hardrada's defeat reached them and at turn 7 the Vikings withdrew.....an Anglo-Saxon victory.

This was a quite a lot of fun, It was actually the best game of Saga I have had for some time. I find Saga pretty gamey at times but this seemed like a true historical event. I should note that Harold Godwinson was able to defeat the Normans at Hastings so remained the King of England.......history was defied.

Battle of Hastings