War of the Roses Battle - Impetus AAR

Still catching up on old AARs!

Monday March 25 Maurice hosted us for a War of the Roses Game, George and I played the House of York and David an Maurice were representing the House of Lancaster, we used Impetus rules.

The deployments saw the Yorkists place some horse in the centre and left with foot of varying quality in support, The Lancastrians set up all their horse on their right with their artillery and their best foot in support then varying quality of foot along the rest of the line.

The battle unfolded with the Yorkist centre and right advancing whilst the Lancastrian opposing centre and left did too, this lead to the lesser Lancastrian units up against a mixed lot of Yorkist ones, the better quality Yorkists units began to win. This then led to a rash charge by the Lancastrian horse on their right which failed and the redeployment of much the infantry on the right to the centre where it was ground down. The Lancastrian left at this point 'broke' and their army decided withdrawal was the best option, a victory to the House of York!

Some Pictures...

York placed its best horse unit in the centre, it literally rode down several Lancastrian foot units its placement was rucial as there were no horse to face them from the Lancastrian side...

Yorkists in the foreground advance!

The Yorkist's artillery proved useful, in the background you can just make out the foot from the Lancastrian left redeploying to boost their crumbling centre!

A close up of Maurice's fine figures!

The Commander of the Yorkists left is the foreground looking on as his troops hold off the late charge by the Lancastrian right...

Grinding melee went on all along the line...

The figures and terrain Maurice supplied were up to his usually high standard!

Wings of Glory (or War) Balloon Busting Session

Well two things; first we are getting way behind on posting our fortnightly gaming reports and secondly here is one!

On March 18 we unpacked an old friend the box of WW I Wings of Glory/War models! This session we thought we'd try our hands at a bit of balloon busting it turns out it is not as much fun as regular dogfighting but still well worth the time spent, we managed three games before sitting down to shoot the breeze!

Game 1; Al and I took on a Nieuport and a Spad XIII respectively and Dave and George both had Albatross Vs but with the task of guarding the balloon! I tried to flank the balloon and took a shot from Dave's Albatross at long range, I drew the explosion card! Al went straight at the balloon armed with rockets and with his first shot using both sets available blew the balloon to bits, he then turned and exited the play field being chased by Dave and Georges Albatrosses. George didn't even get a shot in!

Game 2; Again Al and I took on the Nieuport and a Spad XIII respectively, Dave had an Albatross V and George ran the Trench cards again they had the task of guarding the balloon! Again I went to flank the balloon and shot Dave in his Albatross down getting a Pilot kill, Al was shot down by ground fire then I made repeated sweeps and took Balloon out while everyone else sat around, a bit of a boring solitaire end to the game!

Game 3; We dumped the balloon and went for a dogfight 2 Fokker Triplanes vs two Sopwith Camels, it was fun with 'twisty turny' Dogfighting! Both the Fokkers were shot down in the end.

Some Pictures

Game 1 Lt Copley takes a deadly blast from Ritter Von Neudegg!

Game 1 Cpt Harrison's rocket blast the balloon from the sky...

...he survives to tell the tale!

Game 2 Lt Harrison is not so lucky and gets taken out by ground fire!

Game 2 and Lt Copley survives ground fire to take down the balloon...

Game 3 lots of dogfighting! Ritter Von Neudegg 'buys it!'...

Game 3 LT Copley is shot down by the Brit Fighters!

A good night as usual with these rules! More catchup AARs to come!

Saxon sv Vikings battle AAR - Impetus Rules

Last Monday Maurice hosted an Impetus game for us, more importantly he also laid on some neat dinner!

Dave took command of the Vikings and I led the Saxons! It was quite a large battle and Maurice's figures and terrain were excellent.

It was a grinding action. The Saxons in the village which was the Vikings main object held out long enough for their right flank to defeat the Vikings facing them and bear down on the rear of the Vikings right!

Some pictures...

The Saxon right advances! 11 Units faced 5 Viking ones, but the latter were of better quality and included 2 units of vaunted Berserkers

The Viking Berserkers charged but were repelled and then overrun by the Saxons...hmmm...

The terrifying Vikings warriors then followed up the Berserkers and attacked and they too were repulsed!

On their other flank the majority of the Viking Army advanced on the village...

The defenders were out numbered but the Saxons in the village were the best the Army had to offer up!

Saxons counter charged the main Viking force!

Meanwhile the Viking left was overwhelmed, not a good day for the Norsemen!

The Vikings were held by the village defenders!

Here we found the fact units get locked in combat until one side or the other is defeated made it hard to deploy fresh second line units into the fray to beat worn defenders!

Another view of the fight for the village...

Close up of some of Maurice's excellent figures!

It was a close battle. We like the Impetus rule set, the combat takes getting your head around but once that is done it gives us a good fight that can be completed in an evening!

Second Franco-Mexican War - Song of Drums & Kepis AAR

In October we played a Song of Drums and Kepis game using the Convoy Scenario, we set the game in the period on the Second French Intervention in Mexico circa 1862.

Al and Maurice commanded the French and were in charge of the convoy, Dave and George led the locals.

The Mexicans line up before the Action Captain Martinez and Sharpshooter Paulo up front!

The 'Armies'

The French

1 x Officer Lt Dreyfus 

1 x Sergeant Sgt Depp

7 x Elite Legionnaires

1 x Supply Cart and Civilian Driver 'Bob'

The Mexicans

1 x Officer - Captain Martinez

1 x Crack Shot - Paulo

10 x Regular Infantry

The AAR

Turns one and two, the French got off to a good start the convoy moving along with a couple of successful activations and with no Mexicans appearing on the horizon, it was looking like a walk in the park thought Lieutenant Dreyfus.

Turn three a group of Mexicans appeared in the woods to the right of the road, Lieutenant  Dreyfus allocated 4 Legionnaires to deal with them! Simultaneously Mexican Captain Martinez had sprung his trap he ordered his men to take carefully aimed shots at the French opposite them, every shot missed!

Turn four while Bob led the convey the escorts to the right of the road charged the Mexicans facing them! Martinez seeing the French advancing barked orders to his men to reload and fire as a group, they failed to heed his command thanks to a poor activation roll, he started to shake in his boots! Due to this poor command performance the second group of Mexicans including a crack shot known only as Paulo failed to move into action!

Turn five and Captain Martinez was hit by a bullet rendering hors de combat and his men were overrun by the rampaging Legionnaires! The second group of Mexicans failed their first activation again causing a turnover ending the hapless Mexican involvement in the turn!

Turn six and Bob, Sgt Depp and the convoy exited the table whilst one Mexican out of a group of five managed to activate, too little too late!

A decisive French victory! Well done Al and Maurice.

Some Pictures (I didn't take many was watching how the action played out!)

The French Legionnaires escorting vital supplies enter the fray...

 

All seems ominously quiet!

A volley of shots rings out breaking deadly silence at the order of Captain Martinez!

Three Frenchman hit the dirt but the fire inflicts no lasting damage!

Lieutenant 'X' orders his left to charge the Mexicans in the woods while Bob continues to lead the precious cargo further along the road...

Under pressure the Mexicans try a Group Action to prepare a second volley to meet the oncoming Frenchies...they roll disastrously...no actions, plus this being the first try to activate this phase/turn that means that no other Mexicans get a chance to activate! Oh dear!

The Legionnaires reach the Mexicans at the tree line and decimate them!

A sole Mexican stands firm defeating three attacks!

Bob and his Escort safely cross the required ground...

After Game Stuff

A convincing victory to the French Foreign Legionnaires!

Until recently and since day one we have been playing Song of Drums and Shakos wrongly (all my fault), we had full turns and allowed all miniatures a chance to activate and then move onto the next turn BUT apparently every ‘turnover’ resets all the miniatures to ‘ready to activate’ status. Wow has this changed the feel of the games played, from one of my favourite sets of rules it’s tumbled to ‘Ah Song of Drums again…’ status! Now unless you play with forces with balanced Quality (read Activation) Numbers it turns into a one sided affair just like this game was. Then if you have two elite sides it is virtually IGOUGO with only a double one causing a turnover and lastly if you have two sides of poor quality troops playing it’s painful with turnover followed by turnover resetting all miniatures often resulting in IGOUGO by miniature. Now effectively Units have two Levels of Activation; a test using their Quality Number and the Turnover excluding a chance for dice rolls 😳!

As an aside we played Fistful of Lead recently and I am thinking of using that for skirmish games now, a couple more trial games to follow!

Dead Man's Hand AAR "There's Gold In that Thar Town!" or "Trouble Out West"...

In September we played a game of Dead Mans Hand, there were three gangs heading into the Town, they could gain or lose Victory Points by killing others Gang’s Characters or Townsfolk and there was also loot to be 'recovered'! Okay so basically there was Gold "In that thar Town!" but who would get it?

The Ex Confederate Cavalry (George)

The Outlaws (Dave)

Or the Ranchers (Pete)

The Town...

The AAR

Well the action ran quick and hot!

The Outlaws and Ranchers were soon at each other and casualties started to mount as a fast and furious firefight erupted!

Taking advantage of the other two gangs preoccupation with each other the Ex Rebel Cavalrymen skulked through the town seeking fortune! They ran into a couple of armed locals whom they quickly dispatched!

With the Outlaws and Ranchers now spent forces the Ex Rebs took control of the Town’s Main Street where they were in a position to ransack the Town un opposed!

A win to the Ex Reb Cavalrymen, well done George!

Some Pictures

The Ranchers (five figures in the foreground) enter town and find the Wells Fargo building full of Outlaws, the shooting’ begins!

The Ex Confederate Cavalrymen carefully entered the Town keeping clear of said shootin’…

The Ranchers and Outlaws get up close but still find it hard to hit anything 😲!

Finally with so much lead in the air the first bullets find targets…

Meanwhile the Cavalrymen gun down a Townsperson out front of the Haberdashery! They then continue to make their way down Main Street…

The Ex Confederates view of the Town’s Main Street, Ranchers and Outlaws can be seen in the distance! The farm folk were in the process of putting the bad guys to flight, we were down to just the badly battered Ranchers and the fresh Cavalrymen (play onimous sounding music 😉).

An overview of the Town, all the buildings except the ones in the top right with the small corral are scratch built…

The final act, a Cavalryman known as Slim Jim takes aim at a Rancher from the Banks roof and fires, his aim is true and another Rancher eats dirt and the rest decide to leave the Town pronto!

Afterwards Stuff

Using the players points accumulation at the end of the game the Ranchers and Outlaws both had higher totals than the Ex Rebs but given they could the recover anything they wanted from the Bank etc they were the winners on the night!