Category: Rulesets

Marching On Richmond Fast-Play Campaign

Today Cam & I kicked off a fast play ‘style’ ACW Campaign, where we start off in 1861 with an identical sized brigade each, and these will grow and change over the course of our battles, with units being reduced by attrition but gaining in experience (while also losing their élan to a degree with that experience), or being reduced to the level they are disbanded or destroyed on the battlefield, while other units will arrive to reinforce these forces, gradually increasing our commands’ from Brigades to Divisions…

It’s 1861, the United States is at war, with itself! Both North and South have called forth men to defend the sovereign claims. I have been given command of a Brigade of Volunteers in the USA Army of Northeast Virginia, currently the primary force of the Northern Army on the border of Virginia – I am Colonel Ulysses P. Rickards and I am a veteran of the ante-bellum U.S. Army, having served in the Artillery. In the vicinity of my Brigade’s encampment is a Confederate Brigade (that I am charged with observing) of the CSA Army of the Potomac, under one Colonel A.P.S. Longman, like my brigade, Colonel Longman’s is made up of fresh volunteers, and is currently covering one of the main routes into Virginia from Maryland. Colonel Longman is an extremely wealthy Virginia Land Owner, who is very well connected and pre-war was regularly featured in the fourth estate and other media – a celebrity of sorts.

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Normandy Buildings

I recently caught up with my gaming buddy Kieran (6mm Wargaming), and he brought round his completed 1/72 scale Italeri European Building kitsets he has done for his 1944 Normandy terrain. Kieran’s been taking a break from Crossfire and playing a lot of Kampfgruppe Normandy and has been steadily working on his terrain and new 20mm (German & U.S.) armies for that theatre. The Italeri buildings are the Country House, House With Porch, and the Stone House; and Kieran has gone to reasonable efforts to detail them with window shutters, walls & gates (some scratch built, some commercial), and other features – I think you’ll agree they’ve come out looking very good! I’ll be looking to achieve similar with my kits when I get around to them, and may have to talk Kieran into doing them for me since he’s done such a good job of his own! Continue reading “Normandy Buildings”

Hundred Days British

42nd Royal Highland (who later became the Black Watch) & 92nd Gordon Highlanders
42nd Royal Highland (who later became the Black Watch) & 92nd Gordon Highlanders

Life has been a bit hectic over Christmas – with holidays, work, catching up on gardening & clearing clutter (both wargaming and general household accumulation), and a few other matters – so I haven’t had much chance to progress any posts in January at all, even though I do have several part-written or drafted in outline. Meanwhile here’s a little eye-candy of a couple of my 28mm Napoleonic British units that featured in my ‘Hundred Days’ games in 2011!

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Rorke’s Drift Arrives!

My Warlord Games “Rorke’s Drift” box set arrived today… It’s an impressive beast- it was part of their pre-order special on the new Anglo-Zulu War range that’s the premier of their new strategic partnership with Empress Miniatures. At the time I resisted the urge to get the full “Horns of the Buffalo – Rorke’s Drift Collectors Set” which is an absolutely huge collection of toys! This set is the first of their collaborations planned with Empress Miniatures – so you get a swag of Warlord Games plastic figures and terrain pieces, some Empress Miniatures speciality metal figs, and a pair of “4Ground” laser-cut plywood building kitsets of the storehouse and hospital. Continue reading “Rorke’s Drift Arrives!”

Blenheim 1704: A Maurice (Refight) Experience

Following on from our two previous outings with Maurice (see Maurice: First Game Impressions and Maurice: Second Game & More Thoughts), Cam and I decided to have a go at a historical refight – deciding on Blenheim, so last weekend we set to it It would be heavily “Bathtubbed” to fit it down to the size of a typical Maurice game, and we’d be playing with all the full rules (rather than just the free Maurice Lite version). This meant we’d have troop quality, enhanced morale, and other factors involved. We both calculated out separately what size we thought the armies would be in Maurice – I based mine on the battlefield size & frontage and came to about 32 units of Infantry & Cavalry for the French (the larger force), however this was clearly too big so halving that came to 16, about the right size, and co-incidentally the same amount Cam had calculated starting with the troop numbers and working from that direction. Continue reading “Blenheim 1704: A Maurice (Refight) Experience”

Maurice – Second Game & More Thoughts

So a week after our first game Cam and I set about a second – the plan this time to start to try and be a bit more savvy and also Cam decided on a gimmicky “All Infantry” army to see how it’d do! Note that as I did with the previous game I’ll generally talk in terms of Maurice Lite (as that is what is currently published) but we were using aspects of the full game as referenced throughout the Maurice Lite rules (and I’ll note in the narrative where they occur). The game commenced with us determining a battle in the Tropics (this is a full game feature that determines type of terrain and how much can be selected, what type of troops aid scouting to gain the initiative, etc), Cam won the scouting (with the help of a special ‘Notable’ espionage card) and chose to Defend (another full game feature). Normally the players would then now determine and place the terrain but I had pre-determined it’s type and location randomly to save time prior to Cam’s arrival – so instead Cam chose which side he wanted. As Invader I then deployed first…

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Maurice – First Game Impressions

A few weeks ago Sam Mustafa announced his latest rule set he would be publishing, “Maurice”, which would cover the rump of the 18th Century and include Campaign and Imagi-Nations aspects… This was especially interesting to me as I have really enjoyed Lasalle since its release (it’s the first time I’ve been totally excited and passionate about Napoleonics in 35 or so years of wargaming) and if Maurice was going to be anything along a similar vein I expected something worth getting excited about. Furthermore I’ve really wanted to get into 18th Century in some form, and the WSS (War of the Spanish Succession) has always interested me (because of my childhood memories of reading about John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugène of Savoy, defeating the dastardly French at Blenheim & Ramillies, etc). What’s more for me the WSS has always held that ‘Old School’ feel about it that brings back memories of pouring over Charles Grant’s “The Wargame” as a teenager and dreaming of one day having those large 18th Century Armies like in the book… Continue reading “Maurice – First Game Impressions”

Maurice Lite Is Here…

Sam Mustafa has just announced today that Maurice Lite is available to download at his Honour Games Website. Maurice Lite is basically a stripped down version of Maurice, sans the advanced rules and the more detailed parts of the standard rules, and with a basic starter set of DIY cards to get you going. It will certainly be sufficient to get an initial feel of how the game works and for people to gauge the mechanics. I was lucky enough to have just had my first taste of Maurice too, and I liked several aspects of the rules – but it’s certainly a bit different to what many people may be used to. Incidentally Sam has also updated the status of the full version of Maurice in the last few days. Continue reading “Maurice Lite Is Here…”

WSS Here I Come – Well Almost!

As mentioned previously the announcement of the release of Maurice by Sam Mustafa (due about March 2012) has got me inspired to finally get started on my WSS Armies, of which I have purchased several packs of Wargames Factory plastics (in fact I now have 15 Infantry & 7 Cavalry boxes, and am waiting for the hinted at Artillery box that is apparently being considered and will hopefully appear in 2012). Further inspiration is coming from several gamers blogs and such working on these same plastic figures, such as Platoon Fire, an Imagi-Nation WSS project. The photo above is from the Platoon Fire blog’s first Wargames Factory units, the author (Aidan) is constrained for space so is doing small 12 fig Infantry Battalions and 5 fig Cavalry Squadrons/Regiments. And there is more inspiration around too with a nice WF WSS Infantry Battalion at Castles of Tin. Continue reading “WSS Here I Come – Well Almost!”

Dominant Hill: The Black Brunswickers Baptism

Recently I finally got my Brunswick Corps close to completion (well barring the grass for the bases, and the 3 Brigade Commander figures) and Cam and I were overdue for another larger game akin to The Crossroads (that we had played several months ago) – so it seemed a good excuse to give them their baptism as an entire corps. This time we went a fraction smaller than that game, but a little larger than a standard Lasalle AB List Game, with the forces selected using an updated version of Cam’s Lasalle Points System originally posted on the AWC Website. The purpose was to try a game with about a reinforced Division (e.g. an Infantry Division with Cavalry Brigade in support) a side, test out the points amendments (especially regarding on-table cavalry), and play a scenario from Charles Stewart Grant’s Table Top Teasers or Scenario Books. This is what happened about three weeks ago…

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A Lasalle Points System: Our Latest Draft

Those familiar with Lasalle will know it uses a set of ‘Army Builder’ lists to design fairly generic Divisions based on an across-the-board average of the real life historical equivalents  (very similar to what SHAKO II also does). To add extra flexibility, assist scenario design, and provide options for building historical forces and such, we’ve been working on a points system as an alternative for Lasalle.

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Gosh those Victrix Austrians Look Nice!

I stumbled across Jeff Lower’s Blog recently care of Michael Davis – and he’s currently working on some new Victrix Austrians – and my gosh they do look good! The new Victrix ranges include two Infantry packs (a early 1798-1809 set in helmets, and a mid to later period 1806-1815 set in shakos), a Grenadier set (for 1798-1815), and a Landwehr Infantry set (for the later 1808-1815 period). You can check out Jeff’s progress on his blog.

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