In other news........

Today is the calm before the storm apparently.  It's lovely outside, sun shining and a gentle breeze.  The forecast is less pleasant, with 80mph winds and more rain forecast for tonight. Oh well, I'll have to stay in and do something wargames related. Oh the hardship!  ;-)

I have been gaming a bit more this year, despite feeling pretty rough occasionally.  Monday night has been largely boardgaming lately.  we played another round of Zob's gangster game, with me running the games creator a close 2nd at the end.  The week after we played Firefly, bought by Nathan at Crusade in Welsh Wales.  I really like the game and am looking forward to playing it again, it really catches the flavour of the series and I can't wait to be misbehaving again.

Last week I put on a game of Longstreet fro Panjo and Andy.  As their first game they each had identical forces, 3 units of infantry, one of cavalry and a battery of 3 guns.  Andy, commanding the Union force, chose to attack and went at it hell for leather.  If he could charge, he did charge with everything that could charge.

Union infantry advances

Reb cavalry on the flank

Reb centre collapses, but the flanks are secure.

The Union force lost the fight but, due to his aggressive leadership, Andy came out of it covered in glory and gained lots more troops to continue the fight.  Panjo's Rebs won the fight, but he did so by being all defensive.  He managed to gain a rank, but his reinforcements were far fewer in number than Andys. Andy now has 5 units of foot, 1 small cavalry unit and 3 batteries of artillery (33 foot, 4 cavalry and 7 guns).  Panjo has 3 units of foot, 2 of cavalry and 2 batteries (21 foot, 13 cavalry and 6 guns).  Should make for an interesting game on Monday night.

The other game I played was Chain of Command at PAW 2014.  This was played for Gav of Baker Company to show off his new Winter War range of figures and vehicles.  He provided the terrain and troops, Nathan and I just had to roll dice and have fun. Here are some pictures of the troops and tanks.

A platoon of Finns, supported by an MG and a sniper

A platoon and a half of Russians, with 4 assorted T-26s as support

The game was played twice, first time with green Russians(Nathan) vs veteran Finns(Me).  It did not go well for the Russians.  They lacked sufficient command dice to make use of their support and were whittled down by the accurate fire of the Finns.

Russians advance and get shot to pieces

For game 2 we swapped sides and upgraded the Russians to regular.  A more concentrated advance was the plan, staying far away from the HMG bunker on the left flank.  The massed ranks of Russians allowed them to get into hand-to-hand were, despite the Finns superior ability the weight of numbers told and the Finnish sections were wiped out.  The extra command dice also allowed the flamethrower tank to get within 12" and start fricasseeing some of the other Finns.  When we called it a day, the Finns were down to 1 force morale point, but the Russians were nearly out of men. 

Massed charge on the right flank. URAAAAAAA!!!!

Hand to hand was decisive but costly for both sides.

Nathan also played on the Sunday with Panjo, there are a couple of nice reports on his blog.

All in all it was a good day out and, despite suffering on the Sunday, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  So much so that I am considering getting some early Russians and Finns in 15mm.  I also got a couple of bargains at the show.  Another copy of X-Wing for the princely sum of £10, giving me 7 TIE fighters and 4 X-Wings now.  Then, as the day came to a finish I picked up Officers and Soldiers of the French Imperial Guards Books 1 and 2 by Histoire & Collections.  Cracking little uniform books and only £3 each. 

So, there it is.  All in all not a bad few games.  Tomorrow is the Devon Wargames meeting again, so expect more pictures on Monday or Tuesday.  Have fun and keep rolling those dice.