Chain of Command again

Gus and I visited Stumpy Towers again last Thursday, this time with the intention of trying out the armour rules for Chain of Command.  After getting Nathan to make the tea we adjourned upstairs to blow up some tanks.

To keep it simple we decided to just play with some tanks, so Nathan took his 5 newly acquired Panzer IVs while Gus had 3 Shermans with 1 Firefly and I had 3 Cromwells with 1 Firefly.  The Allied tanks had slightly better armour than the Panzers, but the German guns were generally superior.

As it happened the Cromwells did sod all, with only 1 coming on.  Nathan pushed his forces up the road with one coming on his left flank in support, while Gus advanced quickly to the village. 

Gus' platoon commander engaged Nathans flanking Panzer, with a hit damaging the Panzers sights.  Nathans return fire destroyed the 75mm gun on the Sherman however, so Gus hid behind the hill.  His next move brought the Firefly up into position to fire though.

The armour of the Panzer was no match for the 17pdr and the flank was secured.  The dice system for tanks at the moment is that you roll a number of dice for your gun, needing at least 50% to be 4+ to hit.  The defender then rolls his defence dice based on his armour, with additions if 1/3rd or 2/3rds cover.  We found this a bit off though, as it didn't matter how obscured the target was, everything hit on 4+.  More on this later

With his flank secure Gus pushed on into the village, where he managed to take out Nathan's platoon commander with a shot across the river.  Nathan pulled back at this point as he only had 2 Panzers on the table and he was facing 3 Shermans and a Cromwell, with more to come on.


After the game we had a discussion about the tank system, which we generally were not overly impressed with.  Gus put it best when he pointed out that an obscured target shouldn't be harder to hurt, just harder to hit.  The idea of simplifying the dice rolled is a good one, but it takes away the cover in our opinion.  More discussion will take place, but not on here.

As an experiment we tried a quick game using the older version of the tank fire rules, where you rolled a dice to hit and, if you hit, you then rolled to damage using the gun vs armour dice as before.  We found this to be much better and Nathans Panther held up the Allied Shermans until the Firefly managed to get a flank shot in.  The Shermans were helped by Nathans amazing ability to roll 1's to hit.  Four in a row I think it was.

Anyway, there it is, last weeks games have now been done.  Tonight we are playing Zobs roleplay/skirmish pirate game.  Hopefully I will get a days wargaming in too, but that depends on how the week goes.  Catch you all later.

Gunfight at Zobski's Saloon

Zobski's Saloon

 Last Monday night say us getting together for a first play of Tin Star.  Zob was away playing with real guns so the six of us remaining split into 2 gangs and had a fight over Zobski's Saloon.  Each of us had two gunfighters, one 4th rank and one 3rd rank.  One had a pistol while the other had a pistol and either a rifle or shotgun.  Starting off at opposites sides of the main street, we had at it and prepared to let fly.

The 3 Amigos

 The three desperadoes, or the rebels without a clue!  Colin, Nathan and Andy whose evil bunch of no-good sheep herders came into town to take on the law abiding, hard drinking cattlemen, led by Gus, Panjo and yours truly.

Gunfight at the KO Corral

The game uses a novel system, similar in some ways to Wings of War.  You get to select an appropriate number of actions depending on your rating, so a 3rd rank gets to pick 3 options while a 4th gets 4 options.  Each character then gets to take 3 of his selected actions, so higher rated characters don't get to do more, they just get to cover their bases better.

Injun Bob gets outflanked

 The combat system uses "special" dice, with the appropriate results for any weapon.  For example a shotgun only has a 1 in 6 chance of missing, but can only hit at short range, while a rifle misses 1 in 2 times but can hit out to long range.  Sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, trust me.  There are also dice for movement, cover and under fire.  Basically, if what is on the dice has happened, then the shot has missed.

Two face of with the sheep rustler

Bang and Curly Bob goes down

The fight quickly went wrong for the sheep rustlers, as both Andy and Colin lost a character, then Colin's last man tried to gunfight both of mine.  He managed to take out one of them, but the other cut him down and secured the flank.  Nathan and Andy did their best against Gus and Panjo, but numbers  told and eventually they had to concede the town and were last seen hightailing for the prairie.

Swift retribution comes though

All in all it was well received and a fun game was had.  I will be posting more about these rules as time passes, it may even prompt me to paint the OK Corral figures I got from Games Workshop Historical many moons ago. 

There will be another post later on, but that's it for now.  Keep rolling those dice.

Dux Britanniarum Campaign

The Monday night group have been playing a multi-player Dux Britanniarum campaign for the better part of a year now.  The campaign is based on the map of the South West of England (there's a surprise) that you find in the rule book, with 3 nasty, smelly, uncouth and hairy Saxon warlords doing their best to kill/enslave/drive out the resident civilised, polite and cultured Romano-British people.

The record of battles and current standings after 6 turns(months) are as follows.
Saxons
Paeda (Colin)    6 raids, gaining an Emperors Ransom(9) in loot, a unit of skirmishers and 2 extra warriors.  He is about to "buy" promotion to the next rank.  43 kills, 38 casualties

Oswald (Nathan)  2 raids and 2 defeats, gaining a Patricians Purse(4) in loot.  18 kills, 25 casualties

Egric (Zob)  4 defeats in 6 months, with no profit gained.  37 kills, 50 casualties

Britons
Meilir (Andy)  1 win and 2 defeats, gaining a Beggars Bowl(1). Meilir was captured by Paeda and has to be replaced by a new Lord.  32 kills, 30 casualties

Constantine (Me)  3 wins and 1 defeat, gaining a Tribunes Tribute(3), a Priest and a unit of skirmishers.  56 kills, 34 casualties

Erb (Panjo)  2 wins and 1 defeat, gaining a Tribunes Tribute(3).  25 kills, 34 casualties



Colin is currently walking away with this campaign, although his losses have been quite heavy.  He always seems to manage a win in a decisive combat, which then forces the Britons to retire in an effort to keep their losses down. 

He has also been sending out "The Saxon Times", a write up of his victorious engagements, from a purely Saxon view.   I have created an extra page to put these on as they can be quite long, so please pop over there and have a look. 

There are only 2 turns of this campaign year remaining and Colin has been checking up the siege and battle sections of the rules, so expect big news to come soon(ish).

Bad start but improves later

This last week had a bad start due to me overdoing it last weekend.  Its my own fault and it will hopefully not happen again...at least not for a while anyway.

Last Mondays wargame was another bout in the ongoing Dux campaign.  Colins and his ever-victorious Saxons came up against my outnumbered Britons.  Unfortunately things did not go entirely to plan.

Initial placement of the objective (a church) was not the best, being only 4' or so up the table.  Then the initial arrivals for the Britons was only 2 groups.

Turn 3 saw the rest of the Britons arrive as the early birds moved around to the right of the church in an effort to prevent a Saxon flank attack.

The British Lord looks on as his levy gather themselves for battle.

Meanwhile the Saxon lord bravely led his men from the rear, although his "champion" is in the front rank.

The forces gather as the Saxons pull their lines and and the Britons gather near their warlord.

I missed taking photos for a turn, but the crux of the matter was the Saxons sent a noble and group into the church to gather loot while the other group faced off against the cream of the British force.  One charge and quick round of combat later saw the Saxon group seen off and the Britons threatening the flank of the main Saxon line.

The view from the British Warlord, now safely positioned behind his shieldwall.



The Saxon line withdrew, while the Britons removed shock and readied themselves for battle.

In a change of plan the Saxons threw themselves at the smaller, but better quality, British shieldwall.  A couple of rounds of battle saw the results seesaw from one side to the other, before excess shock drove back the British.

Luckily for the Britons though, the Saxons were also suffering a bit from shock.  Unfortunately the Saxons in the church then rushed out into the rear of the Britons disordered units, killing enough to rout one unit and force the British to leave the field.  I nearly had him, but the flank charge won the game and the Saxons won by 3.  Buggeration. 

The other half of the table had Panjo's British facing off against Zob's Saxons again.  Zob ended up charging at a formed shieldwall that was uphill of him and, despite his best dice, he was forced back and conceded the table. 

So Panjo's village was saved and Zob is still winless.

Panjo did do a good impression of "The Claw", not sure how it helped his force but he won anyway.

Zob did not look impressed with "The Claw" though.






Here are the "Chuckle Brothers" having a good time as Colin tries to focus on the action.

Painting wise, this week was a bit of a wash out due to feeling crap until Wednesday.  Since then I have managed to paint some German armour, with 5 Plastic Soldier Company Pzkpfw IVs and 6 Battlefront Stugs getting layered with paint.  These have all been bought by Stumpy to join his ever expanding German army.  It makes a change from Tigers though, which is nice.

He wanted foliage on them all as well, which I have tended to avoid on anything with a turret.  Hopefully these look ok though and the bush bits don't stop the turrets from being moved.

Well, not too much anyway.

All the Stugs are from the Open Fire box, but these 3 have had replacement barrels as they were bought put together on ebay and the muzzlebrakes were on backwards.  Luckily I had a couple of spare 75s and a 105 barrel in the bit box, so here they are.

Final news is about Fathers Day and what a cracking day it has been.  First off the kids (and my wife) all clubbed together and got me a Kindle Fire HD, which is rather nice.  Then my wife and I went off and watched After Earth in Exeter, which was also nice.  So all in all a good day. 

Market Larden debrief and Cowboys!

Last Saturday saw four of us get up early and head up to Market Larden, a Too Fat Lardies games day by the Wyvern Wargamers.  Nathan, Panjo, Gus and I all arrived at 8.45am, then set about catching up with various old friends and meeting new friends.  A friendly gathering with some excellent games on show promised a good day out. 

Tin Star Table

First table, and first game we played, was a Wild West skirmish called Tin Star.  Put on by Geoff Bond and his brother, this game was great.  A really simple but effective dice system and much fun was had.  Panjo snuck a win by managing to kill Nathans last character, with Gus and I deciding that discretion was the better part of valour.  This is one we will be playing soon.

CoC and Rich

The next table was Rich's CoC game, in 28mm for those with weakening eyesight.  ;)
Probably the busiest table of the day, the Germans appeared to win every game.  Nathan, Gus and Panjo all played this while I spent an hour kipping in the car as I felt crap.  I guess the early start and long drive caught up with me.

IABSM set up

 Next to CoC was a nice 15mm IABSM game put on by Ade Deacon.  His bedspread doubled up as fields while the British attempted to drive the Germans back.  Seemed to go pretty well, with plenty of smoke and lots of dice being thrown about.

Sharp Practice

Next up was a Sharp Practice 28mm Napoleonic game.  Run by Paul this looked cracking, with British troops coming off the boats and attempting to capture the village.

IABNM

15mm moderns using I ain't been nuked Mum, and adaptation of IABSM was the set up on the nest table.  Nick Overland ran this and I, unfortunately, didn't manage to get a game in.  Nathan did and seemed to enjoy it, although we will probably play it in 6mm as we have so much of that already.

Mud and the Blood

 A very nice looking table was set up by Stuart and Mark, both Wyverns.  Russo-Japanese war was the conflict and very nice it looked too.  Pity its not my thing, but others seemed to enjoy it.

Dux

A Dux Britaniarium game was also set up, but I don't know who by.  I do know that the Saxons seemed to get seen off again.  Wish I managed that against Colin.

Panjo with planes

The sixth table was a 1930s Dieselpunk air combat game, set up by Nick Hawkins.  I got in a game of this and enjoyed it.  The movement templates were excellent and the game played well.  I got a hiding, but that didn't matter as the game was good.  Panjo also played this and, despite his history of aerial games, managed to get a kill. 

Dakka dakka dakka

 Here's Panjos lead plane opening fire on the oppositions wingman.

Lots of 1's, but more hits

 18 dice were rolled to hit, with Panjo managing to bring the target number down to 2+ bu using his special cards.  Five 1's meant his ammo was depleted, but 13 hits spelt doom for the target.

Despite the defenders best efforts, the plane fell to a fiery doom and the flight leader escaped off the table.

Happy Panjo

Panjo usually manages to fly into the ground when we play air combat games.......or he turns the wrong way and takes the rest of the game to get back into the fight.  He's even worse with ships, but we won't mention that on here, as he reads this and he's bigger than me. 

Anyway, it was a great day out, thoroughly enjoyed it and thanks to all those who put on the games and organised the day.  If its on again next year we will be there, dice in hand and ready to go.

Special thanks go out to Ade "Big Nose" Deacon for being the main man in the set up.  Sorry I didn't get a better chance to talk to you again Ade, but it was good to see you again. 

Big Nose

Busy busy busy

Its been longer than I had thought since I posted here.  I have played a few games since my last post, I have painted more figures and I have watched some rugby.  I have also been feeling pretty sick in between these, so things have fallen a bit behind schedule.

The table we played on

Games played since my last post have been many and varied.  Tuesday last week saw four of us gather at Casa del Stumpy again.  The usual trio of Nathan, Gus and myself were joined by the sizeable addition of Pingu.  ACW Black Powder was the order of the day, but I forgot my camera again.  I guess the only thing that could be worse than forgetting your camera would be to take it and then leave it there when you are going away on holiday on the Thursday, but who would do such a thing?

Rebs smash into the Blue Line

 Luckily Nathan managed to take a few photos, so I have nicked some from his blog.  The game went well, at least it did for Gus and I commanding the gallant defenders of the Union.  Despite being militia, untried and outnumbered, Gus' brigade managed to see of the rebellious Southerners despite their repeated charges and advantage of numbers.

Reb Cavalry vs dismounted Union Cavalry

What really happened was every time Gus fired or fought he managed to roll a 6, disordering the Reb unit.  Every single time.
 This meant that despite their superiority in capability and numbers, the Rebs tended to be fighting at a disadvantage due to the defender holding behind either a wall or fence.

Union reinforcements arrive

In addition to Gus and his jammy dice, Pingu managed to roll very low numbers for the Confederate generals, so they were failing orders and the additional brigades didn't come on it time to help.

So, the battle ended with the Rebs skedaddling back to their Southern homes while the Union boys held the ground and had some sippin' whiskey.

The quiet left flank

The game was enjoyed, but I am still not convinced that Black Powder does it for me.  I prefer Fire and Fury for ACW, Maurice for AWI and They don't like it up 'em for Colonial.  Nothing bad about the rules, they just don't do it for me I'm afraid.

Panjo looks at Gus with disgust after another 6!

 After the quick resolution of the wargame, we adjourned downstairs to play Pandemic.  This co-operative game requires the team to work together to counter the spread of nasty germs and virus type things.  We managed to win both games, the first with 1 card left in the deck, the second with 3 cards left, so we are getting better at it.

 
The next gaming was on Monday night this week, where the next round of the Dux campaign was taking place.  Nathan was still gathering replacements from the defeat he had suffered at my hands and the other Saxon lords decided to leave my lands alone and raid the other British territories.  Colin took on Andy, giving him a sound thrashing and capturing his Lord.  We are not sure what this means in terms of the campaign, but I am thinking either pay a ransom or get a new Lord for Andy.  Zob took on Pingu and, despite failing in the mission, managed to scrape a 1 point win.  This is Zob's first victory and finally gained him some loot.


Next Monday's game is Dux for me, with the most victorious Saxon lord (Colin) taking on the most victorious British lord (me!).  This could be a decider for Colin as he is rapidly gaining more men and has already gathered a large amount of loot.  I can see a Warlord appearing out of the Saxon mists, waging war on one of the British lords in an attempt to set up his own kingdom.  Unfortunately for me Colin has gained extra skirmishers as well as 2 extra warriors.  Things could be bloody on Monday night.

Saturday sees the ACW commanders gather again, but this time to go to Market Larden up in Evesham.  This gathering is being organised by members of the Wyvern Wargamers, with 30+ people getting together to play various Too Fat Lardies games.  I am looking forward to this as a day out with the lads doesn't come around that often anymore, due to work and family commitments from one or more of us each time.  So onwards and upwards, expect to see many photos (if I remember the bloody camera) and random musings next week.

Rugby has had a good few appearances in my schedule too.  No2 son and myself went up watch the Premiership final and a cracking day out it was.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, good entertainment and the boy went to the bar as he is now old enough to get 'em in.  Admittedly I was only on coke, but its still nice for somebody else to get the drinks.  The game was good too and I think the Tigers would have won even if Dylan Hartely wasn't sent off.  Last Saturday we went up and watched the first Lions match in the pub.  Another good game and he went and got the drinks again.  The cost of 2 pints and 2 cokes has prompted the (temporary) arrival of Sky Sports in this house though.  £25 for Sky Sports or £16 at the pub for each of the remaining 9 matches, the maths is easy.  So this morning we watched the Lions playing the Western Force team in Aussieland.  Not as good a showing from the Lions and I can only hope they get better as the week passes by.  Bring back the scrummaging master that is Adam Jones!  Dan Cole is good, but he's not that good.

Well that's it for now, off to paint some more Napoleonics.  I have now done over 1200 15mm figures this year, which is about as many as I did all of last year I think.   Keep rolling those dice folks, and support the British and Irish Lions......unless your an Australian.