Well I’ve been mucking around for sometime planning to do something for Dux Bellorum – and 12 months or so ago decided to do a Carolingian Army, albeit slightly outside the chronological and geographical period nominally covered by the rules (Arthurian Britain 367 to 793 AD). However I have been wanting to do something nominally ‘Charlemagnian’ in a wargaming context for sometime, so while outside of Britain and slightly late period-wise (768-814 AD) it is very much an army in keeping with Dux Bellorum’s ‘genre‘ and it’s historical opponents are identical or very similar to those found in Britain (e.g. Saxons, Vikings/Danes, and Lombards – only the Moors in Spain won’t easily fit the Dux Bellorum gaming model). And so, to bring in the new year of 2015, and my new Carolingian army’s basing having been completed (partially) to a level suitable for use, they were christened in an initial outing against Kieran Mahony’s Normans (who at nominally around 970 AD onwards are also a bit out of period for Dux Bellorum). Continue reading “Dux Bellorum With Carolingians”
Tag: Rules
Printing Action Cards For Longstreet
If you are interested in Longstreet you will know it requires cards to play. There is an official set available from Sam Mustafa with the rules, which requires the action deck for one player, plus all the advanced cards for other features of the (advanced) rules and the campaign. However you do need to have 2 decks of the action cards for a standard game – the official deck will provide you one set for 1 player, plus all the advanced cards you need for both players. So to get a second action deck (assuming your regular opponent(s), or lack of the same, don’t have a set) you can either do as I have done and buy a second official set, or you can just use the lower quality free PDF from Sam’s Website to printout, stick to card, and cut out. Continue reading “Printing Action Cards For Longstreet”
“Maurice” Reviewed
For those interested but who may not have seen it – there is a fairly comprehensive Audio-Visual review of Maurice on YouTube by Shieldwall100.
Watching it again, its enough to make me want to get back to my WSS project and the dozens of boxes of Plastic Wargames Factory Infantry & Cavalry awaiting assembly! Continue reading ““Maurice” Reviewed”
Marching On Richmond: Sam Mustafa’s Longstreet
You may have been wondering what happened to our Marching On Richmond Campaign? Well, after the May 1864 action we did successfully conclude the campaign and I will post the final 1864 and 1865 battle reports and campaign narrative sometime soon… Meanwhile if you haven’t already realised we were playing with a near final draft of Sam Mustafa’s “Longstreet” – the latest in his Honour Series of games… Longstreet is now finished and the books & cards have been printed and Sam is planning an August release, however in the meantime you can download a ‘Lite‘ version of the game from the Honour Downloads Page. This is a very cut down version, but for those interested will give them a taste of what the full Longstreet will be when it’s released in a month. Continue reading “Marching On Richmond: Sam Mustafa’s Longstreet”
Blenheim Redux! Another Take With Maurice…
Back in December 2011 before Sam Mustafa’s full version of “Maurice” was released Cam and I had been play testing it. As I previously posted we had done a re-fight of Blenheim, but weren’t completely happy with how we modelled the terrain and the armies – so with suitable adjustments to both we had given it another bash. I never finished writing up the battle report but did take a reasonable selection of photos – this is a photo gallery of our Blenheim Re-fight, Take 2, using Maurice. As with the previous game we did not have the suitable 28mm figures, so we instead had our Lasalle Napoleonic Armies standing in for the War of the Spanish Succession period troops. The play test is now rather redundant, and Maurice has now been available for 9 months or so, but I thought a few gamers out there might enjoy seeing the photos and our ‘bathtubbed’ order of battle.
Continue reading “Blenheim Redux! Another Take With Maurice…”
John Curry’s “History Of Wargaming” Upate
On the 04 May 2012 John Curry sent the following update out concerning his “History of Wargaming” project for those who may not have seen it:
This is a short occasional update on the publishing progress of the History of Wargaming Project. The project has gone digital and about 20 of the books/rules are now available as e-books from the iBook Store, The Nook, or from www.lulu.com. The rest of the back catalogue will be converted in due course. Peter Perla’s Art of Wargaming, a book about the professional use of wargaming (as well as much interesting material about the history of wargaming), is now out in paperback. Donald Featherstone has seen his novel Redcoats for the Raj, back into print and he has completed a new novel, The Badgered Men. Donald Featherstone’s classic book Air War Games has now been updated and is now [again] in print.
Continue reading “John Curry’s “History Of Wargaming” Upate”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…
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…”
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.
Continue reading “A Lasalle Points System: Our Latest Draft”Warhammer Waterloo Playtest at F’ de Onoro
I recently purchased a copy of Waterloo from Warhammer Historicals – partly because it was on 50% discount, but also partly because initial feedback was quite positive about it’s production quality and content. I’ve had it for a few days but to date have only managed to skim read through it so as yet haven’t looked into the actual game mechanics in detail – but I can say production quality is superb – and on a par with Kampfgruppe Normandy (although Waterloo is not such a ‘heavy’ book).
Continue reading “Warhammer Waterloo Playtest at F’ de Onoro”