Huzzah 2015

I attended my first "CON" 2 weeks ago in Portland, Me. This is one of the two major wargaming conventions in New England (I am sure I am missing one in Connecticut), I have have heard many times that Huzzah is the premiere convention.

Unfortunately because of travel commitments, I could not drive up until Saturday afternoon so I missed at least half the convention. I really did not have a lot of time to look around as I committed to a pick-up game Saturday night and I had to put on a game for Sunday. I had a quick dash about, and before you knew it I was involved in a demo game of CoC put on by Eureka Miniatures.

The convention seemed quite busy, I really have nothing to compare it to, so there is little I can say about it. The hotel seemed nice, I stayed downtown so it was a bit of a drive. I found it a little confusing as it was spread out among several halls. I also wish the vendors were together, but all in all it was fun and if given a chance I will attend again. 

Anyway I took a few snaps, really they are quite limited, but I thought I would post hem.

Eureka had a great stand

I had not realized that they had Winter War Finns that looked quite nice, if I add any to my force I will get some of these.

Kurt from the Hobby Bunker as well as Ricky from Kingston Gamers played the CoC demo with me.

A very nice set up with a CigarBox mat.

First time I ever played Americans in CoC.

TFL was well represented.

One game I would of liked to play was this WWI variant of CoC. What a great terrain.

On to Saturday. Here is my friend Adam, I think he commanded the Prussians in the Struggle at  Placenoit.

Here is the centre of the Battle of Waterloo with La Haie Sainte in the far ground.

Here is the French left flank the Struggle for Hougoumont.

This game was my responsibility, I brought all the terrain and figures, I think it looked pretty good.

German skirmishers

Back to the centre action. The Boston Trained Bands, the club I belong to, put on the Battle of Waterloo.

Placenoit

The French Attack starts.

I think Rich, the club president had a pretty busy day. He is the chap with the baseball cap.

I really have no knowledge of the ruleset used, Black Powder, as I had not played it for about 3 years. Rich has an excellent knowledge of the ruleset and kept the game running.

We used the scenario for Hougomont straight out of the BP Albion Triumphant supplement.

It was really nice to see a table of full of my figures.

The French finally start to flank the allies.

It was closely fought, but the allies did a great job of holding off the much more numerous French Force.

Well it was a lot of fun, I was kept pretty busy keeping the figures moving on the table, as there was reinforcements almost every turn.

We are actually going to replay the battle this Saturday at the Hobby Bunker, I am looking forward to playing.

Chronica Iohannes: Combat at Blar a'callaid

We had another game in our Dux Campaign, Thursday week. This time Adam called for a battle. I usually arrive at the Hobby Bunker first and set up the terrain. I really try to set up a symmetric battlefield that does not favour either side. We then dice for which edge we want. This time I set up the field with a fence with two major gaps and two gates running along the long axis of the board. When Adam arrived we added some stone walls to it to give some hard cover. It was an interesting game which was a little more tactical and less bloody then our recent games. A usual you can see an excellent AR with photos on Adam's blog the Fencing Frog.

I have been having a tough time with the pre-battle phase in our last two games and again my Champion Cyneric came out wounded, giving Adam a boost in his morale and some extra combat dice.

The Saxons rapidly advanced their warriors to the wall, while try to flank the Britons to their right and get over the wall. Fortunately the Britons were able to bring up their levies and for a quick sheildwall.

Towards the middle the Saxons had some initial success but my elites and warriors were able to counter attack and drive them back. A battle of attrition ensued in the middle with attack and counterattack. The Britons got the better of this but the outcome was still in doubt. By now the Saxons were able to get their elites over the fence and threaten my warriors flank from their left. I slowly wheeled them backwards and was able to form a shield wall.

By this time the Saxons centre was undone and they decided to withdraw. The Britons contested the withdrawal. The retreat-pursuit cards were equal. I had a slight advantage in men lost and had two points for the victory. But more importantly I had killed two Saxon nobles giving me the magic 5+ victory. I am now allowed to upgrade one of my units. Certainly this will be a unit of warriors so I now have two units of elites.

We then went into the post-battle process. Adam threw a 3, so his men will take 6 months to recover their full strength. As the Britons had lost the province of Caterick the previous summer, I decided to lay siege to my lost province. I threw a 2, so Caterick was recaptured in October 554, 15 months after it was originally captured.

Iohannes returned to his great hall, to celebrate he hires a bard to sing his praises and strengthens his province with a hill fort.

On to March 555, with a much strengthened force of "Men of the North".

Chronica Iohannes: Raid at Heaðuswát Cirice & Some Holiday Snaps!

Time for bit of an update. The last three weeks have been quite busy for me and I have had little wargaming aside from this past weekend. At the end of April, I had to make an unexpected trip to pack up my daughter's flat in Montreal. We had the lease until the end of June but her immersion programme finished the end of March and thankfully the landlord allowed her to terminate the lease early if he could find another tenant, which he did quite quickly. I had never used a storage facility before, they are really quite handy and they gave us a free truck to move. Pretty good deal really, but I am not looking forward to moving her into her new flat in August. I have told her no more moves! We then went on a vacation to Europe with my wife's family and both my son and daughter. The family stayed in Paris, but my wife and I took off to Bruges for a couple of days. Well worth the trip and I really got to learn a lot about beer. Both kids really enjoyed Paris and my daughter is already talking about moving there from Montreal to further her Fashion Design aspirations. We got back to Montreal on Thursday and then had to drive to Massachusetts. I had promised some time ago to provide terrain and troops for the  Hougoumont Scenario for the Boston Trained Bands Waterloo game for Huzzah, so Saturday I had to get up early, pack 22 battalions of French and 5 battalions of Allies as well as all the necessary terrain for a 6x8' table and drive to Portland, Maine. More about that later but time to catch up with our Dux Brit campaign. 

Our last game was on the 23rd of April. We played the church raid scenario, the Saxon player gets to pick whether we play a raid or a battle and Adam decided to go with a raid, a d6 was thrown to select the raid. By now the Saxons had a string of victories and had captured one of my three provinces, I really needed a victory. As usual you can find an excellent AAR with photos on Adams blog, the Fencing Frog.

This is a tough raid for the Saxons, I got a fairly good starting position and the Saxons started on the far side of a stream (it would of killed them if it was a river). I was quite hamstrung though by the position of the church as it ended up being placed next to a swamp which really hurt my ability to use my levy in shieldwall (they are really quite useless unless thus protected).

It was a brutal battle with heavy losses on both sides, but as you can see I was able to gain a 4+ victory so gained 2 gold and 2 warriors. Additionally the Saxons lost two of their nobles. The campaign is now as follows, we are hoping to have our next game this Thursday. I believe neither of us are tiring of the campaign, it really is very well designed.

I thought I would also add a few photos from our trip, I add non gaming stuff to my blog once a year and it has been a couple of years so I will allow myself this indulgence.

My daughter Jane and her Aunt Wendy in front of guess what!

My son Simon

It was my wife's father 70th birthday the alleged reason for the trip

Made it to the top of yet another church, this time the Sacré Coeur in Montmatre

Two excellent beers in Bruges

Tasty

Bruges is quite beautiful

The Bell Tower in Bruges, it had even more steps than Sacré Coeur

The Romantick Pand Hotel

Even Jennifer was convinced to drink Belgian Beer

Pre Moulin Rouge snaps  

Simon enjoyed the Moulin Rouge!

Do I look French? 

Sisters in the Rain

Back to Bruges, I did make it to the top

Well worth a visit

My beautiful wife

Leadership

It seems I seldom post my painted work now. Most of my posts are more towards the wargaming related activities rather then painting. I still paint though but really it is much more directed to need then previous. My recent foray into the General Bonaparte meets Chain of Command revealed a need for more mounted colonels. I have lots of Prussians but had to order some Austrians and Brunswickers from Perry. I also needed some Dark Age cavalry leaders for my Men of the North. These are from Footsure Miniatures and are quite nice.

Four colonels from Calpe. I am not sure why most of their leaders look left!

Most of my Prussian force are modeled around the 100 Days Campaign

From R to L: Oberst von Reckow IR21-4th Pomeranian, Oberst von Bismark 1st Landwehr of Elbe, Oberstleutnant von Wienskowski IR23-2nd Upper Silesian,  Major von Koschkull IR18-3rd West Prussian

The Champion Cyneric and Legatus Antoninus

The photos were taken overexposed, which I must say is harder to correct then those taken underexposed. Well I am doing my somewhat regular review of my Napoleonic troops, I have become quite curious on how many I have actually painted. I am laying them all out on table, hopefully have some new photos soon.

Chronica Iohannes: Raid at Grene Torr

We had our tenth battle in our Dux campaign last Thursday and it now seems like ages since the Britons have won a game.

We decided to play a raid for a change, specifically the Baggage Train scenario. This is the first time we played this specific raid and it was quite fun. Essentially the Britons had to move a 3 wagon train across the length of terrain. The Saxons had their start on top of the train and it almost looked like the game was going to be over before it started. Fortunately I had some good cards in my Fate Hand at the start of the game and I was able to forestall a 3 unit attack on the train.

As usual there are photos and a full action report on the Fencing Frog blog. Things looked quite good after the initial blocking of the attack on the baggage train and I was able to move the train up the board. The Saxons however are quite fleet-footed and were able to grab one cart soon after.

My problem now was to try to withdraw my troops in good order while protecting the remaining two carts. I was able to do this with some success by sacrificing my Elites (what else is new). By now I had whittled down the Saxon forces while preserving my own. Each morale test was costing me though and soon I was down to a morale of 1. Another shuffle of the cards was made, and really it was down to which noble's card game up first. Cards turned...........Saxon noble, my warriors were taken in flank and the game was over on a morale loss. So although I had only lost 12 men and the Saxons 20, and had protected two of the 3 carts, I lost the game. With morale loss, your retreat cards do not count so a yet another lop-side victory for the Saxons of +5.

The Saxons were able to then play an uncontested Raid and recruited a Wicca Priest going in to May of 554.................so is Fate!