Fire and Fury ACW

 

A week ago myself and Graham went to the Abyss to have an ACW game. This is the first time that I have played this ruleset, and the first ACW game that I have played for quite sometime. My go-to game for ACW is Pickett's Charge, a great game and easy to play if familiar with David Brown's other ruleset Général d'Àrmée. Thus I was quite curious about this ruleset. 

Graham put together the game from the tactical version of the ruleset. It was quite a small OB with 4-5 regiments per side. The scenario was from the rulebook and was based on the Battle of Ball's Bluff. It was interesting to me that the game mimics actual historical orders of battle, and because of this the size of each unit can vary widely. I played the Union and I had one unit with 16 stands and one unit with 6 stands. I was unsure how this would work, but it seemed to work well. It was also a small game on a 4x4' terrain. Anyway on to some photos.

The initial set up with the Union in the foreground

Graham's Confederates

A tiny 2 base cavalry unit

After one move

Advancing on the Union left flank

You would have thought that this charge would have went better for the Union.

Was able to drive the Confederates back

Moving on my right flank to protect against a cavalry charge

There is base removal in the game

Demonstration of asymmetric unit sizes

We played several turns and there was a clear Confederate Victory, the dismounted cavalry on the right caused me no end of trouble.

I quite enjoyed the game, and I felt mechanistically it was pretty simple. It's one weakness of course in my mind is that it is an IGO-UGO ruleset, but there is certainly some quick turns of fate but more based on the dice throw rather than the player. Pickett's Charge allows the player to make decisions when things go wrong with the Command Dice. With Pickett's Charge the player needs to have plans B, C and D when a brigade goes Hesitant. I am not so sure if Fire & Fury offers the same decision making, but of course I have only played one game. I hope to play others. 

Thanks to Graham setting up this demo of the rules.

Infamy-Infamy

We played our first game of Infamy Infamy a little under 2 weeks ago. PY had just finished painting up some Romans, I believe he has had the Germanic Tribes painted for some time. Fantastic figures as usual on a very nice terrain. 

I played the Germanic Tribes while PY played the Romans. It has been some time since the game so I do not remember the exact composition of the units but I believe they were standard war bands taken from the book. I was the attacker which was a bit weird as the the layout was clearly rural (where I suppose the Romans would be the attackers). The scenario was generated according to the rules in the book, essentially the Germans were attacking the village and had to burn the crop fields. They were coming from the right in the above photo, while the Romans were coming from the left. A number of Ambush points were set up in the game from which I could deploy. I have to admit being a little confused by this process but I had not had an opportunity to have a look at the rulebook before the game. We each had 3-4 units of troops with several leaders. We had one group of missile troops each.

The main Roman group with 3 units and 2 leaders.

The Germans

The Romans coming into attack my Germans, I tried to split their targets by sending in a single unit of warriors. The green dice represent barbarian Fervour. 

Roman Slingers

 

Germanic archers and infantry

I was able to set the fields alight and get off the board, the victory conditions for attackers. So a Barbarian victory.

Well it was an interesting game, we made quite a few mistakes and I have to admit that I was a little surprised how different it was from Sharp Practice. On the surface, the rulesets appear quite similar but some of the mechanisms were quite different. I enjoyed the game but before I play the next I definitely ned to have a good look at the book and find a good QRS!

Congo in Mesoamerica

Finally back to catching up with my blog posts from last week. Two more to go after this one.

My friend Luis has been working on a modification of the Congo ruleset for Mesoamerica. He has done a terrific job on putting together the stats and cards for modification. Graham has painted all the figures required for the game, so last Sunday last we gathered at Graham's for a game.

This was a two on two game with Jean-Jacques and Graham playing the Conquistadors while myself and Luis played the Aztecs. The details of the war bands are a little foggy now but I will post some photos. We each had two leaders and there was an Aztec priest in the middle of the table protected by Luis's warband. If I have it right each leader was worth a VP and if the Conquistadors killed the priest it was 10 points.

Here are my troops, the figures are absolutely beautiful. I had 3 groups with 2 leaders.

Jean-Jacques and Graham putting together their cunning plan to kill the Native Americans

Much of the battle of course centred around the centre of the table, here we have the hapless sacrifice about to be killed by the Teopixqui with the Spanish and their allies trying to stop him.

Of course if there are 14th Century Spanish, there is going to be a Priest. I was able to kill him. I suppose I will go to the underworld now. Those mounted Conquistadors will surely send me there.

The final battle, if I remember correctly Jean-Jacques snuck is troops around surprising the Teopixqui and killing him. The Aztecs were in pretty bad shape at the time.

Well this was a fun and beautiful game, we did lose but it was fun. Luis has really put together an excellent modification for Congo, which I suspect will become quite popular.

Congo in Africa

As part of Graham's recent weekend extravaganza we had two Congo games on Sunday. In attendance was myself, Jean-Jacques and Luis. Graham acted as the gamester for the game he put on. This was the first 3 player game of Congo I played, and when I think about it, I do not believe I have ever played any 3 player war-games.

As usual Graham set up an excellent terrain. Jean-Jaques played the Zanzibari's, Luis the African Kingdoms and I played the White Man's Expeditions. We each had 80 points. Luis was tasked with protecting a Sacred Area in the middle of the table while myself and Jean-Jacques started from opposite corners. I am not sure how many turns were planned, I believe we played 6 or 7. We had to capture the Sacred Place that was worth a set number of points. we also got points for destroying enemy units. I should also note that half of Luis's force also started off table. It was quite a good scenario.

Here is the 3x3' terrain. I started in the bottom left, while Luis had half his force in the  centre  with the other half coming in from the right of the photo. Jean-Jacques started from the top right corner.

I rapidly advanced my archers and my Askaris to cut off Luis force rushing to aid his units in the Sacred Ground. I had some success and was able to take out one of his units but my Askaris took some damage. The Archers were following up to finish the job.

Quite a battle ensued around the Sacred Ground with the Zanzibari's attacking from the right. Significant casualties were taken on both sides. This was my cunning plan, as I was slowing advancing my other units from the right to take the Sacred Ground once Luis's troops were weakened.

Unfortunately, I had to send my Trained Askaris with the Leader to assist  in the fight with Luis's troops who were rushing to aid their allies in the Sacred Ground. They also took quite a pounding. You can see though that the my 3 Explorers have advanced in cover towards the Sacred Ground.

As each turn progressed Graham added dangerous animals moving about the terrain, here we can see a crocodile and above an elephant. they kept me on my toes.

My Askaris, Explorers as well as my Leader with his Trained Askaris moved into position but the game ended, without them able to make an attack! A Victory to Luis for holding onto the Sacred Ground.

This game was a lot of fun, but I was a little slow in getting off the mark and the game ended before I could mount an attack on the Sacred Ground. Thanks Graham for putting on a great game.

SAGA- The Battle of Downrgonna

 

Two days ago, myself and David had a game of SAGA. This is the first time I had a game of SAGA with David and I believe we had a great time. I will look forward to our next encounter, as he is a very talented player.

David has written an excellent report on his blog, and there is no way that I can even come close to it so rather than writing one myself (plus I am behind 3 other reports with another game tomorrow), I will reference it here with a link to his blog The Korrigan's Lair. It is written in French but the translating function worked quite well for those who do not have French.

GdA-Mt St Jean Redux

This past weekend Graham held one of his gaming weekends. Scheduled for Saturday was a GdA game put on by myself; while on Sunday we had 2 Congo games, but more about those two games in my next posts.

Some months ago now, I put on this Napoleonic scenario at the Abyss to introduce the ruleset to some new players. It did not work too well as it was too large a game as an introductory game and it just did not work on a 6x4' table. I also had some a problem with a couple of the players, as they were not just that receptive to a novel ruleset. Three of the 4 players this weekend had played at least 3 games of GdA in the past and all were keen to play. Graham has also set up a 8x4' table which really made an enormous difference. I had travelled out to Beaconsfield on Friday to set up the game so we were all set to go Saturday morning at 1000h.

I used the same process for this 4 player game, with alternating the CiC for both sides. The CiC had to give at least 1 ADC to the other player on his side, unless he had 5 ADC's and then he had to give at least 2 ADC's. This works quite well, as each player gets to be the CiC throughout the game. Here is the OB, I added an ADC to each side and you may note that there is a lot of substitutions in the OB as I put in the actual units that I have.

So after a bit of chit-chat we got the game underway, I will explain the rest with photos.

Here are our players in mid-game. On the left side is Graham and Jean-Jacques playing the Allies and Iannick and David playing the French.

The French starting position with the Grand Battery in the middle. 

They were quite eager to get started.

More keen French.

The British from their left flank, they started most of their troops in line.

The French left flank commanded by Iannick, the multiple red beads indicate that they are charging on Infantry Assault. One of the Allied Objectives was to hold La Hair Sainte.....

.......which came under immediate threat from Donzelot's Brigade withe the famous 13é légére leading the charge......

....and was taken quite quickly, the French left 1 battalion to hold the farm (the maximum allowed by the rules for a strongpoint) and advanced their other 4 veteran battalions to drive the British out of the sandpit.

and that went pretty successfully as well. By now the Allied right flank was  starting to crumble but they now had Lambert's Brigade coming into bolster this flank. As you can see in the far ground two other French brigades were advancing up the centre, one commanded by Iannick and one commanded by David. The fire from Napoleon's Daughter was pretty ineffective, as they were anchored at long range. As you can see the British centre and left decided to hold their positions on the high ground. Also in the far ground you can see the two brigades command by David on the French right flank were advancing, they did need some encouragement as they went Hesitant in the first several turns.

The French centre is starting to take some fire and the appearance of Ponsonby's Heavies caused them to form square. As happened in the actual battle though you can see the French Lanciers coming from right of the photo ready to take advantage of reckless British cavalry charges.

Several charges in the centre resulted in melees.

The French did get beaten back at certain points in the game.

Good use of the Forwards ADC.

The French right flank advance

Lanciers

As usual few photos get taken at the end of the game, but by now Kempt's Brigade was dispersed and the British left flank was also started to crumble with another Faltering Brigade.  The French had suffered minimal casualties with all brigades in good order. Six hours had passed, it was pretty clear that the French were going to prevail so after 11-12 turns the game was called with a French Victory.

Well I had a great time running the game. I am hoping everyone had a good time, certainly I believe that the rules are now firmly entrenched. we had very few questions and we probably went through every possible mechanism the game offers. This will be the last GdA game I will put on until version 2 arrives which sounds like it has some quite substantial simplifications with a focus on increasing command complexity. I  am putting on a GdA game at Huzzah in Portland, Me in May, I will probably go with v1.