29 October 2019

SAGA-AoC-Subjugation

 
Had another game of SAGA set in the Age of Crusades a L'Abyss last Saturday in Montreal. My opponent was again Luis F. This time he played the Spanish BB while I played the Moors. These are both shooting factions which benefit from being mounted. We again decided to go with the Book of Battles. Luis had printed out the downloadble card set from the Studio Tomahawk forum, so we randomily picked a card from each of the 5 criteria. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge as the cards where in French in which I am extremely limited and while Luis's English is very good a lot of the words used were quite technical so somewhat difficult for him to translate into English. After a bit of back and forth though we came up with the below setup.

Game Set-up (BoB Chaos)

Scenery-Bleak Moor
Deployment-Vanguard
Special Rule-Forced March
Victory Conditions-Subjugation
Game Length-Pitched Battle

The Spanish (6 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Warlord
2 units of Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of javelin armed Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Moors (7 SAGA Dice)

Mounted Hero (2)
The Black Guard (2)
1 unit of javelin armed Mounted Hearthguard
1 unit of  javelin armed Mounted Warriors
1 unit of Bow armed Levy

Some photos:
Luis has that determined look!
A double ronged attack by my Warriors and Hearthguard
Quite a bit of attrition, with about equal losses on both sides. Unfortunately I exposed my Hero Warlord who ended up being exhausted going into my last turn. He did not die but he was of little utility in the turn.
Nothing like seeing my Levy being crushed by a double sized unit of Spanish Hearthguard.
It is interesting that both our games have been limited to 5 turns with the first 2 turns having movement limited to short. I was the first player in this game which is a bit of a disadvantage I think as Luis had the last move. The fact that most of our troops were mounted made the last 2 turns particularily bloody as we had muliple melees. I thought I was done for after I finished my 5th turn but as it turned out it ended up being a 18-18 tie! 

Another really enjoyable game with Luis who is great to game with, I will be back in Montreal in 3 weeks so I hope to get in another game then.
L'Abyss is a good gaming space. Has a lot of Fantasy figures, as well as a lot of Warlord and GW product. Well supplied with modelling and painting supplies.
As you can see there are plenty of tables and a great selection of boards, mats and terrain for the players to utilize. There was a large Age of Sigmar tournament going on Saturday but I took the photo during the break.

26 October 2019

And They Say that 3D Printing is not for the Faint Hearted!

 
A couple of weeks ago, I recieved my first 3D Printer. I had been thinking about a purchase for some time. I am mostly interested in printing terrain and some AFV's. I was particularly unhappy with getting buildings for 20 mm wargaming which were all over the scale map. Italeri and 4-Ground are nice buildings but I find them a little overscale. I think the 20mm Sarissa Precision are a perfect size, and they are priced right but I have found MDF buildings a little brittle for transporting around. I hvae recently been gaming in Montreal with P-Y who has a lot of great looking 28mm 3D printed terrain. This does seem the ideal solution, you can tweak the size and then print out a perfect scaled building.

So what to get; the big boys seem all in for Prusa printers but I have to say the Lair of the Uber Geek's description of taking 2 days to assemble one sort of put me off (sorry Miles). I am just too impatient for screwing around with stuff. One of my colleagues at work got a Creality 10S and he had actually a very easy time of it and it was half the price. I got him to print an ACW building for me and it was just perfect so I went ahead and purchased it on Amazon. 

Two days later a big box arrived and there it was. Really beautifully packed. I found an excellent assembly video on line and I would say I had it up and running in 2 hours. It came with a small spool of white PLA and before I knew it I had printed my first building. It really came out perfectly, wow I said this is great!

I had bought a couple of STL file packets from Najewitz Modellbau, one of their Normandy packs annd an ACW pack so I had a lot to go on with. These are really excellent files and the first Normandy building I printed was perfectly in scale with my Sarrisa models without any tweaking so I was quite happy................but I had run out of PLA.

I wanted a grey PLA but when I went to order some on Amazon I saw some nice brown PLA and I thought this would be a great starting colour for wooden buildings so I ordered a roll. The usual Amazon excellent service delivered the package the next day so I loaded it up and started the printer. I have to admit that I did notice it felt a little different than the white PLA but I am a complete novice who as I have just previously described as being impatient.

Well something seemed to be wrong, things would print but I had a lot of problems with adhesion to the build plate and the models appeared to grow hair. I would set up a print and the next morning I would find the printer stopped with the building only half done. WTF!

I had a closer look and discovered that I had acually bought a combo wood particle-PLA product. Pulled it out and ordered another reel of rea PLA. It would print but I was still having a lot of problems. I leveled and releveled, tried different adhesives, figured out how to change bed and nozzle temperatures, found out about temperature towers.......nothing seemed to work. I was now becoming increasingly frustrated. This went on for a couple of days, what to do?

It was now starting to dawn on me that the problem appeared to be that the stuff was just not coming out right. I could improve things by changing temperatures or slowing the build rate but it just did not seem right. Maybe the nozzle was screwed up? I had another search on the internet, found that it was really a piece a cake to change out a nozzle and amazingly enough the printer had come with an extra nozzle. 

I pulled out the old nozzle and it was completely bunged up, I could not even clean it, how it was extruding any PLA at all was amazing. I changed out the nozzle, loaded some PLA into the extruder and I have now gone through a 1.5kg of PLA in a week with the printer going 24 hours a day pumping out perfect models.

Well I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks. I discovered that when using wood/PLA combinations you need to use a larger nozzle than the 0.4mm one that is standard. I learned that a glue stick is the best adhesive and once applied 3-4 times you are all done for several prints.

I think I have printed out maybe 6-8 buildings without any problems, the scale is great for 20mm wargaming and they match well what I have. They are all in various stages of being painted and I will post some photos soon.

So I am quite happy with my Creality 10S, it is an excellent device, it is easy to keep going once you do a bit of research, the Crusa Slicer software is quite intuative. I have printed my first building at a lower resolution as I was anxious to see what it could do. I will now starting printing at better resolutions as I believe I now understand the whole process much better.Maybe time to print some tanks.

12 October 2019

For Sale: 1/72 Scale Italeri and 4-Ground Buildings

These buildings have become surplus to need, so time to get rid. They have seen many a battle and show some wear but are in very good shape.

4-Ground-5 Buildings-1/72 Scale-New Retail $185



Italeri-1/72 Scale-Hand Painted-5 Buildings-$130 Retail


So, I will let them go for $150, Paypal only. Shipping not included (But will ship as cheap as possible, this will be a large box). US only!

09 October 2019

All American-Turn 4

Last Saturday, we played our 4th game in our All American campaign at Pierre-Yves in Lachine. P-Y had won the last 2 games, so I had to be on my toes for this one. This was scenario 3 from the campaign booklet where the Germans have to attack across a causeway into the outskirts of La Fière. This is played as the Attack on an Objective scenario from the main rulebook. There were some special rules, the Americans get a free ambush point underneath the bridge crossing the river and start with a loaded CoC die. It did look pretty tough for the Germans. As you can see from the photos below, P-Y laid out an absolutely stunning terrain.

After 3 turns
German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked
American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded, SL1 6"CR, 2CI
American Platoon 3: Intact

Setup


82nd Airborne 3 Platoon (FM 11)
Core (Elite 5+1)
SLx2 (carbine and SMG)
Bazooka Team
Squads x 2 (JL/SMG, M1919 LMG Team/3 crew, Rifle Team/8 men)
Supports (6)
MMG Team
2 Entrenchments
Wild Card: Heavy Hitter (M1 ATG)

Grenadier Platoon (FM 10)
Core (Regular 5)
SL/SMG
Panzerschreck Team 
Squads x 3 (JL/SMG, LMG Team/3Crew, Rifle Team/6 men)
Supports (13) 
Panzer IIIG
Renault R35
FO w/ 8cm OTM

Germans are attacking from left
German Approach
P-Y constructed this bridge-terrific job
American Side
Patrol Phase and JOP's

We used 3 Patrol Markers each, P-Y only got 2 free moves
German JOP's
America JOP's, the 4th is in the house to the bottom right

Game

As usual I forgot to take photos, I had thought I had taken more but all I could find was 3. It was a pretty even game in respect to double phases and luck with the dice. I think the Germans have a quite a tough time of it is in this game. P-y's plan was a good one. He had taken a off-table mortar which he quickly laid down just on the American side of the bridge. Before that he had put one squad in the road on overwatch with the FO as well as the Renault tanklet. I could not resist putting down my MMG team on my left flank behind a stone wall in heavy cover, they were at close range and firing 10d6. I did cause a couple of kills but the overwatch fire back was devastating as I had 3 men killed and I ended up pinned. Down came the Mortar Barrage and they broke. One FM point down! More below.....
The unlucky or maybe foolhardy MMG team....
.....who broke
I will continue the story here. P-Y placed 2 squads on the road with a plan to advance. I decided to wait until I got a good chance to end the Barrage, I did start with a CoC dice and was able to fairly quickly get a 2nd one but not before the Germans had acquired one. P-Y had laid down the barrage to the right of the road on the far side of the river. This allowed me to put a LMG team in an entrenchment on the road with the rifle team behind the hedge. I was also able to put down a SL and the 60mm Mortar team on my right flank next to the rifle team. Timing was everything here as I had to get the Mortar lifted before it could start to creep to the German left. I got my 2nd CoC dice and then got a double phase. I ended the barrage, P-Y kept it going but on the next phase I ended the turn and caught the German squad at close range. They broke falling back and at the same time interpenetrated the squad behind them causing 6 shock. The Germans gamely fought back but by now their FM was down to 4. It was clear that their attack had failed and they withdrew.
Post-game Campaign Process

After 4th turn
German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked
American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: intact

Campaign Tracker
Germans
Commander's Opinion +1 
Men's Opinion 0
Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sociable (+1FM)
Americans
Commander's Opinion +4 (+1 Support)
Men's Opinion -2
Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Content

It was a good game, we are playing turn 5 on the 25th of October (need to get out of Salem for Halloween  it is getting crazy here). I am curious to see what P-Y's plan is for his 2nd assault attempt.

13 September 2019

An ACW Campaign for Pickett's Charge


Myself and my friend Adam have decided to play another ACW campaign. We already played a campaign with the Longstreet ruleset some years ago. Our ACW figures have been languishing in boxes and it was time they saw the table again.

I have really enjoyed playing the two rulesets put out by David Brown in the last couple of years as published by TFL under the Reisswitz Press banner. I have played quite a bit of Général d'Armée with my friend Iannick in Montreal and have become quite comfortable with the ruleset. Pickett's Charge has similar mechanisms but the overall game is a little simpler. I liked playing Longstreet but I find that Sam Mustafa's rules, although superbly written in a very clear fashion, are pared down a little too much for my taste. I really enjoy the complexity of decision making that is the main characteristic of TFL rules in general. Yes, they are a little less clearly written (both Rich Clarke and Dave Brown use a much more conversational style of writing than Sam Mustafa) but if you do not overthink what is written, I actually find them quite intelligible. They are my first choice for Napoleonics and ACW.

I initially planned writing a historical campaign and I still do but Adam recommended that we use the campaign system in Longstreet. George A. had given me an excellent pamphlet he had written surrounding the Pea Ridge campaign which I plan to work on. But impatience and finding time has lead me to agree with Adam, especially after I saw the preliminary work he had done on translating the Longstreet campaign system in such a way that it can be used with the Pickett's Charge ruleset. I generally do not like playing a-historic or points based games but I think this is going to be OK.

The first step in making the Longstreet (LS) campaign work using the Pickett's Charge (PC) ruleset was dealing with the fact that LS is at the brigade level while PC is at the divisional level. Also LS uses the number of bases in a force to make a lot of decisions in respect to victory points, attrition, and reinforcements. In respect to PC, the most important command decisions are made by the ADC function which does not exist in LS. LS also has a set of campaign cards which are fun to use which we wanted to keep for our campaign.

Below, I will go through the LS Campaign section as laid out in the rulebook with our modifications. I will keep this updated as we go through the process. I think if you are unfamiliar with LS some of the following maybe a little puzzling but of course if interested you can always buy the ruleset.

Campaign Overview
The campaign will be 9 turns and will cover 1861-1865 with a varying number of games per year. We have decided to go with historical battles for our game set up in respect to terrain and victory conditions. The scenarios have been selected with respect to the historical situation during that specific year in order to balance out which side is the attacker and who is the defender. 

Game one will be the First Battle of Bull Run where the Union Army is the attacker. Forces utilized will be generated as below.
Green Rectangle defines terrain at scale of 1mm to 1m
Starting Forces
PC is a multi-brigade game but we are going to start with a small force that will increase as each game is played. Each army will have 6 large green infantry units, 1 standard green cavalry unit (the USA may subsitute infantry unit) and 1 three base mixed artillery battery. The player will arrange his army in 2 brigades with a composition of his choice.

In PC, each brigade gets an ADC as well as extras as determined by CiC. We have decided to double the brigade ADC complement for 1861 and increase it by 1.5 for 1862 (2 turns).  We will also add ADC's as follows:

  • CSA 2 extra ADC's in 1861 (1 Battle)
  • CSA 2 extra ADC's in 1862, USA 1 extra ADC (2 Battles)
  • CSA/USA 2 extra ADC's in 1863 (3 Battles)
  • CSA 1 extra ADC, USA 2 extra ADC's in 1864 (2 Battles)
  • USA 2 extra ADC's in 1865 (1 Battle)

This is to reflect the changing fortunes of each side as the war progressed.

Epic Points
LS uses a system of Epic Points to accrue experience. A lot of it is based on the number of bases in combat etc. etc. I have to say that I always thought this was overly complex. This has been simplified as below.

  • 2 points for each game played
  • 1 point for a victory
  • 1 point for each enemy dispersed unit as per PC
We are planning to use this system as a tool to increase the size our forces as well as the LS campaign cards. So an extra unit for each point gained in a turn. Limits on composition and total army size are discussed below.

The type of unit added is dictated in campaign card system but in respect to Epic System you add units as follows;
1862:  Large Green Units
1863: Large Green Units or Standard Regular Units.
1864: Standard Regular Units

Promotion
Dealt with by the ADC system as above. Instead the CiC gets to decide before each battle how he is going to field his army with the proviso that there is no less than 3 units and no more than 6 units in each brigade.

In respect to individual unit promotion, this happens through the campaign card system and through time after 1862 (first 3 battles). If a unit has survived the year and has </= 4 casualties at the end of the year, a green unit will be promoted to a regular unit and a regular unit will be promoted to veteran unit.

Battle Losses
In PC, each unit acquires casualties points with a standard sized unit being dispersed after 12 casualties. If the unit is dispersed it is lost but at the end of each game the number of casualties in the non-dispersed units will be reduced by 1/2 rounded up for each unit. So if a unit has 7 casualty markers at the end of a game, it will only carry over 4 casualties to the next game. It should be remembered that in PC units do not lose bases, they accrue attrition.

The only mechanism to shed attrition is through the ADC Rally Posting or the Serendipity Test Roll.


Reduction
Not in use.

Campaign Cards
At the end of a turn each player has a deck of campaign cards pertinent to the year and his army. Each player draws 4-6 cards depending on the year and can use them to improve or increase his army. We can not use all of them but can use most with some modification as below.
  • New Artillery: as it written or add 1 standard unit of regular infantry
  • Hail to the Chief : add 2 standard units of of regular infantry
  • Sharpshooters: add 1 three base unit of veteran skirmishers
  • Transfer: add 1 standard unit of veteran infantry
  • CS Replacement:  add 1 standard unit of regular infantry
  • Rebel Cavaliers: as written
  • See the Elephant: Promote 1 unit from Green to Regular or Regular to Veteran and so on
  • US Coloured Troops: add 1 large Green infantry unit
  • Union Repeaters: +1CD to unit when firing
Maximum Army Size
LS lays out a minimum number of bases that each army may have, this ratio was converted to units as below for maximum army size.
Units include artillery, cavalry and infantry batteries and regiments. The player may have a maximum of 6 brigades, each having a minimum of 3 units (except in the case of attrition where it may be reduced to 2)

Artillery is limited to 4 batteries with a maximum of 6 guns (3 bases) but the CSA may only have one 3 base unit. One base artillery units are not allowed.

Cavalry is limited to 4 units for the CSA and 3 units for the USA.


So that is where we are now, I suspect a few things have been missed and some changes will be made.

updated 9-21-19

07 September 2019

Pickett's Charge- Battle of Chickamauga

Last Friday, myself and Adam had our first Pickett's Charge game in about a year. I have a nice Blue Moon ACW Union army which does not get out often enough and Adam has an even nicer Confederate army. We have been playing quite a bit of SAGA but maybe a break was due.

The 2018 TFL Magazine had a nice scenario with 4 brigades per side so was an obvious choice for our next game. Essentially the scenario involves a confederate attack on a somewhat entrenched Union army. The Confederates were mostly classified as veterans and regulars while the Union infantry were half green and half regulars. No cavalry but a fair amount of artillery was available.
The Union line on the right flank
The Union left fkank, the Confederates make their advance, I decided to send out my largest brigade to meet them. I could stay in cover in the forest but Adam had a lot of Veteran and Elite units that could do damage with extreme range fire. We both kept our centre brigades in reserve.
Adam advances is small but elite brigade on his left flank.
Adam has a great looking Confederate army.
The Confederates move in and 2 of my regiments are in trouble as they are suffereing Fire Discipline. I have to say that Adam was extremely unlucky in getting the Initiative as I think I wone the dice toss for every turn. I decided to charge Confederate C with Union A with Union B in support. In kind Adam decided to charge Union C with Confederate A supported by C. Suffice to both Confederate C and Union C ended up being Whipped.
On my left flank, I decided to charge and although somewhat inconclusive the Conderates were wavering, so I sent in my left centre brigade in support.
By now my Rifled Artillery were being threatened by Confederate skirmishers to their front and Confederate Infantry to their flank. It is tricky however to attack artillery as their cannister fire is lethal. By now however the Conderate attack was crumbling and my 4 brigades were largely intact. Adam had been unable to bring in his reserve brigade. The Confederates decided to withdraw.
We had some minor questions about the rules early on but the game actually flowed quite quickly and I think we got in 9 turns whih is really quite good. I have played a fair amount of GdA recently and although there are some differences the mechanisms are quite similar. It was clear by the end of the ninth turn that there was no way the Confederates could meet their Victory Conditions so a clear Union victory.

I really enjoy these rules, I find them quite straightforward and give a good game with a lot of decision making. If I had one criticism it would be that using 4 ADC's aside really does not give you as many tactical options as are available as they are being used as Brigade Attachments to insure that they do not become hesitant. This is easily fixed by increasing the number of ADC's though which I think we will do in the future.

We are now considering playing a ACW campaign utilizing these rules. Any ideas?