Civil Strife in Arden

 My elder son Norman came up for a visit including some gaming last weekend.  It was the monthly HAWKs Ghost Archipelago day, so we had that game in the morning, but we also set up a 40mm Renaissance game in the evening.

Ross and I are planning to take 40mm Renaissance to Huzzah again next year, so we found time for a "Skype" game a couple of weeks ago (actually Google Hangouts these days) and considered the state of the rules.  After discussion, Ross decided that he liked the rules we had used at Huzzah in 2017 well enough, so that's the version I dusted off for the this game.

I was also considering the question of whether I could run a game at Barrage for four players.  A few posts back, I showed a picture of my full inventory of figures.  With about 50 stands of troops, each player would get a dozen or so, and this game convinced me that wouldn't be enough to keep things interesting.  Norman and I ran this one in under two hours with nearly everything I own (less some artillery) on the table, and it was still pretty fast.

Here is the table set up:

And from another angle:

 We put this on the Alpha Gaming Table (4x6 feet), and it worked fairly well.  We are setting up to move, so the house is full of boxes of stuff being packed, unpacked, sorted, thinned, etc.  That left the gaming table surrounded by some rather tight clearances, and we bumped it a few times.  Being light for transport also translates into being subject to bumps, but we didn't hit it hard enough to bring down the trees, so that was acceptable so far.

I improvised the scenario; as we have used before with the rather generic forces available, we are in the fictional land of Arden, where the usurper Duke Frederick is attempting to seize power from his brother, the rightful Duke Senior.

I'm playing around with battle records...

 As can be seen from the diagram, Frederick's forces entered along a road in two groups, a cavalry group leading followed by an infantry group, with the objective of taking the town.  (The town buildings, by the way, are some Fat Dragon Ravenfell fold-flat structures.)  Duke Senior's forces were an advance guard holding the area with shot, swordsmen, and a cannon, with cavalry and infantry reinforcements expected.

Usurper's horse advances up the road

  

Usurper's gendarmes and foot

The usurper's forces soon ran into the defenders, and their light horse was unable to make much progress. 

The Duke's cannon was firing with good effect down the road, and Frederick order his light lancers to take it.  Unfortunately for them, the cannoneers had time to load a charge of scattershot, and broke their charge. (Melee roll went against the horse.)

Duke's cannon holds against the horse

By this time, Duke Senior's horse had arrived on the scene, and a cavalry fight raged up and down the road between the enclosure at the edge of town and the fields to the north.  

The Duke's foot arrived from the north shortly after that, and crossbowmen  lined the river bank to shoot with good effect into the masses of the usurper's advancing pikes.  

Recalling his objective, though, Frederick sent his swordsmen and some extra shot around to his left in a bid to take the town.  

The Duke's gendarmes attempt to drive off the usurper's forces

They were met by Duke Senior and his gendarmes.  Upon seeing the situation, the Duke decided that running down the foot and leaving Frederick with his lancers to their rear was not a good plan, and charged the usurper in a bid to clear the cavalry with the intent of turning on the foot afterward.

Unfortunately for the Duke, the cavalry fight did not go well.  Frederick had the advantage, and the Duke attempted to save the situation by joining the fray personally.  He was unhorsed, and, with their leader down, the remaining horse fled the field.  

With that, there was nothing but a handful of shot in the enclosure which could dispute possession of the town with the usurper's foot, a task for which they had little enthusiasm.  They too withdrew, and night fell over the battlefield...

We got in about ten turns and the battle ran up and down the length of the table, so it felt pleasantly active for a game.  I noted, however, that I would need more pikes (a lot more pikes) before I could reasonable stage a multiplayer game out of my own resources.  This project originated as two Armati "introductory scale" armies, and I ended up with a relative surplus of cavalry stands when they were rebased onto the 60mm square bases.  Some painted figures have fallen into my hands from gifts and flea markets, but they have all been swords and shot, so my collection still has the look of a couple of advance guards.  

I'm still hoping to get some additional pikes painted up this fall and winter.

Gencon 2018 After Action Report (Long)

Gencon 2018 has come and gone, and all that’s left is to complete the paperwork.

As usual, planning for this started back in January, when badges were purchased to allow us a shot at the room lottery.  Unfortunately, we didn’t end up with a downtown hotel room in a connected hotel, so my brother and I decided that it would not be a good year to host any miniatures games.  

My sign-up time draw for events in May wasn’t particularly good either, so I wasn’t able to get in to any of the “rare” games I had wish-listed.  Nevertheless, I had high hopes for a good convention, knowing that I could always fill any downtime by checking out the exhibitors, playing games demos, or doing some roleplaying with Games on Demand.  

Our crew was diminished this year, since 2nd son William was tied up with grad school events and wasn’t going to be able to make the trip.  That left my brother, Irene, elder son Norman, and myself.  Irene and I scheduled a flight in on Tuesday evening, so that we would be able to take in the unofficial Wednesday activities, and Norman joined us on Wednesday evening.

As the event approached, Norman and I looked into volunteering as gamemasters with Games on Demand, but when push came to shove, I didn’t, due to a lot of activity going on in my non-gaming life.  I hope to do better next year, but it was probably a good thing to have this as a “rest” year. (Gencon is never very restful, but I wasn’t running anything, so it was sort of a rest.)

This was our fifth consecutive Gencon. I probably wrote up the story before, of how my brother and I had attended once before, in 1980, and how a group of guys playing a pick-up fantasy miniatures game in the hallway seemed to be having more fun than almost anyone else we ran across.  So I wanted to make sure that I had fantasy miniatures in case we needed a pick-up game of our own.  I have been working on the “Portable Fantasy Game/Campaign” for just such eventualities.  I added a magnetic dungeon floor section to one of the box lids this year, and therefore loaded my overflow box with magnetized dungon walls, so that we could game whatever might come up.

Portable Fantasy Game 2.5 Liter Expansion Box

The Tuesday of the flight finally arrived.  Everything was packed, and the lists were checked twice.  Apparently I actually left enough time to do that properly, because I didn’t  have to buy replacements for anything left behind.  The Portable Fantasy set fit neatly into the overhead container:

My brother picked us up at the airport after an uneventful flight, and we overnighted in Bloomington, hoping for an early start back to Indianapolis the next morning.

The availability of games on Wednesday seemed a bit limited this year, so I guess we’ll be signing up to run something next year.  We were able to find three spaces in a board game demonstration for something called Motora.  This turned out to be a worker placement game themed around tribes on an island with gradually diminishing resources.  Players needed to balance their tribe members between foraging, fighting, and attempting to control idols to fulfill victory conditions.  Including teaching the rules this took about two hours, so it is  on the long side for a Eurogame.  We all thought that it was fun, though, and would expect to back the Kickstarter to produce it when it starts off.

We hit Scotty’s Brewhouse after the game, for lunch and a free die.  It looks like the trendy thing this year is to add macaroni and cheese to sandwiches. (In fact, I went to a different brewpub, in Utah, the week after the convention, and found that they were also adding mac and cheese to sandwiches...) My brother and I concluded that we should really have signed up to run something on Wednesday, since the games available were all sold out, indicating some underserved demand. We played a few of our carried contingency games (Flux, Travel Carcassonne) while waiting for the kickoff party.   I was determined to try the special Gencon brew this year, and the line wasn't too bad, considering.

We eventually picked son Norman up from the airport, and checked into the hotels for the night.

We got off to an early start the next morning, with a couple of 9:00AM events.  As we got to the convention center, people were waiting for events, and gaming tends to break out under these circumstances:

Waiting games...

Norman-son had developed the schedule matrix for the convention, as has become customary the past few years.  As can be seen from the matrix, I started the official first day of the convention off with a demonstration of Mantic's Kings of War fantasy battle game.  I have had a copy of the rules for some time, but haven't played it previously.  

The game zone was well signed.

As a demo session, the organizers set up a series of one-on-one battles.  We were each invited to choose an army.  I picked one which looked loosely like a Hundred Years War medieval army with some knights and archers, plus a fantasy unit of flying knights.  The gimmick to Kings of War is that figures are not removed, and units are of variable sizes, from detachments to regiments.  Hits cause an increasing penalty to morale checks until a unit routs.  We found in play that this doesn't take too long, so it was a pretty quick game.

I chose the army with the archers...

My main issue had to do with army choice; while all the armies were designed to the same point level, my opponent had a demon army led by a fireball-throwing efreet, and the magical attacks were breaking my units pretty quickly.  My archers routed before they could shoot.  It might be worth looking at more closely at some future point, but I would want to read the online commentaries and see what the regulars have to say about the point-buy system.

Irene met up with me after the game, and we took a walk through the exhibit hall.  Irene and are are working on moving to a new house, so we had an agenda to look at gaming tables.  I was impressed by the Prophecy table introduced last year by Wyrmwood, and was interested to see that they had introduced a new model, the Sojourn gaming table.  I ended up putting a deposit on one, so the new house will be equipped for games. 

Irene wanted to try some "escape rooms" during the convention, so she went off to try one while I settled in for the first of my speed painting events for the weekend.  I ended up in three, two using Reaper miniatures and one with Iron Wind.  I was pleased to place first in the first Reaper event I was in, so that got me a seat in the Reaper finals on Sunday and an extra miniature.

Reaper, Iron Wind, Reaper, and Reaper finals, from left to right

45 minutes each for the preliminary figures, 60 minutes for the final

This is the fourth year in a row that I have made it into a speed painting final, so I guess I have some idea of what I'm doing.

Irene and I were signed up for an escape room on Thursday evening, but there was a scheduling difficulty on the part of the escape room business, so we agreed to reschedule it until Saturday afternoon.  

Auction winnings

We ended up at the auction, as in previous years.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but over the weekend, I did end up with a couple of replacements for games I once had in my collection.

Consignment store area at the auction

Games and items not sold at auction often end up in the consignment area at a fixed price, and the consignment area was busy as usual.  I ducked in there a couple of times, but didn't get anything except a Games Workshop terrain book for my brother.

On Friday, Irene and I had signed up for a dance event, called "Dance to the Front Lines".  This was run by Counts to Nine Productions, and was one of several historical dance seminars they put on.  As I expected from the description, this was basically in the English Country Dance line.  After years of ballroom training, this was not too difficult, and I found it relaxing to have someone else tell me what to do. (In ballroom, as the leader, it's my job to decide what to improvise next...)  Regrettably I was too busy dancing to take any pictures.

The next two speed painting events (results as shown above) were back-to-back on Friday afternoon. Signing up for back-to-back events at Gencon is really only possible if they are in the same location.  I ended up second in the Reaper round, which would have qualified me for the finals if I hadn't already been qualified.  I won the Iron Wind round, and picked up a couple of blisters of old Ral Partha sculpts as a prize.  

Irene and I were signed up together for an escape room on Friday evening, with a lab theme.  I don't want to spoil these things too much, but it was an interesting first experience.  We had to actually use some of the lab equipment, including a centrifuge and a glove box, which was somewhat unexpected.   This particular escape room was run by a franchise colocated with the Spaghetti Factory, so we stopped in there for some dinner to round out the evening.

I was signed up for a mold making workshop on Saturday morning.  My brother did this last year, so I had some idea of what to expect.  I had not had time in the run-up to the convention to sculpt any small terrain item, so I stopped off in the open crafting area while waiting for the workshop.  The craft area is part of the Spouse Activities track and is sponsored by the Brother sewing machine company. I knew that they would have various bits and pieces to work with.  I built a base using a couple of dominoes with a dragon design (which turned out to be too big) and picked up a floral design bead which I eventually embedded in a clay rock.

Gencon has an official sewing machine?

I am waiting on some appropriate casting plaster, but here's my completed rock formation mold, with the bead representing a carving, and a sigil of some sort engraved on the other side.

Mold making

Our rescheduled escape room event was on Saturday afternoon.  Irene and I were teamed with a family with about four kids, so channeling the kids' enthusiasm into something useful was the main challenge.  We finished that one about twenty minutes early, so we had plenty of time to make it back to the Westin for our second Counts to Nine dance event.  At four in the afternoon, it was more heavily attended than the previous one, and was a lot of fun.  

We also stopped in for a ballroom party with the Dancing and Dragons team in the evening, which rounded out our Gencon dance experience. 

There were still a few one-day badges available at the beginning of the convention, but by Saturday, the last of the Sunday-only badges had sold out. 

Plan ahead...

Irene and my brother and I wandered around after the party and some dinner, and found our way to the open gaming space at the J.W. Marriott.  This was newly added this year.

About half of the open gaming space

When we wandered by on Saturday night, it appeared to be pretty active.  It would have been a little difficult to drop a pick-up miniatures game there, since the tables were only two feet wide, but it looked like a great opportunity to try out your need board game acquisitions or relax with an old favorite or two.

Norman-son and I hit Games on Demand on Sunday morning.  Norman had spent some time on Friday and Saturday night running some games for them, so he had a priority choice ticket.  I ended up with an early seat, and tried out Ross Cowman's new game BFF from Heart of the Deernicorn.  While the topic (middle school friends) isn't my usual cup of tea, I was curious about how the story-telling mechanics were going to work with a series of location-based segments (termed "hangouts" in this context).  I don't know that story games are going to be my regular fare, but it's good to stretch my improv skills now and then.

While we were occupied with Games on Demand, Irene was doing a final check of the exhibitors, and ran into Nelly, host of Nelly's Nerdy Adventures, a video log of her various convention experiences, including Gencon.  My brother originally introduced me to this...

Nerdy Nelly

Norman-son had gotten an alternate seat in the Reaper speed painting final, which was out last scheduled Gencon event.  As expected, enough there were enough no-shows that he got a seat.

Me, head down in the painting

Norman, also head down in the painting

This turned out to be good for him, because he ended up winning the competition:

Norman's finals figure, back view

All of Norman's speed paints; note the ermine pattern on the inside of the wizard's cloak

Between the snowflakes and the ermine pattern, his amazing freehand skills blew away the competition, so he ended the convention on a high note.

After some dinner, my brother dropped us off at the airport.  Most of the outbound traffic on Sunday evening was Gencon attendees.

Open Gaming at the departure gates

The airport was prepped for us; open gaming tables had been set up in the departure areas, so we settled in for some more Travel Carcassonne while we waited for our plane.

One last game, then farewell to Indy for another year...

We finally arrived home around midnight, and I would have liked to have taken the day off afterwards for recovery, but the timing didn't allow for it this year, so it was a long week, ending with the trip to Utah resulting in the painting displayed in the previous post.

Overall, though, it was another great convention.  After five of them, I think we have the system down pretty well, and our planning and activities this year were about right.  Looking forward to next year!

Imagi-Nations Interlude

I've been in a busy period at work, so I haven't been doing too much gaming in the evenings the past couple of weeks.  I did get one thing done, as a leftover from the previous blog post.  I sat down and finished the Saxon mounted companion stand I've been working on, for Dux Bellorum.  I'm experimenting with some commercial flags from Wargames Designs for this project.  I also did the metal work last weekend on several more stands' worth of troops, so I'll be able to provide some choices in war band composition for the Saxons even if I don't get in a casting sessions before the weather becomes too cold.

My son Norman had arranged to stop in for a visit this weekend, in conjunction with getting some car maintenance done, so we had been considering what we might do by way of gaming. He has been working (intermittently, as we all sometimes do) on a 19th century imagi-nations project for several years, originally inspired by the acquisition of some interesting toy building blocks at Cold Wars back in 2014.  He's recently completed a few more stands, leaving him with forces that would do for Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames rules.  Ross Macfarlane had posted a review of One Hour Wargames back in 2015, and I didn't have high expectations, but I also didn't have a good suggestion for an alternative set of rules, so we agreed that we would give them a try.  

One of the nicer aspects of One Hour Wargames are the scenarios, already keyed to a three foot square map.  Norman and I both have sets of double sided mats in that size, so setting things up was a breeze.  The first game we tried was using Scenario 9 "Double Delaying Action".  I took the Elabruenese forces, attempting to prevent the Occiterrans from capturing the town and exiting the map on the road on my side of the river, while also subject to a requirement to withdraw three units at various stages of the game.  We each had a full six unit army (the maximum given for scenarios in these rules).  I ended up able to withdraw my units on schedule, but was unable to prevent the capture of the town and the subsequent exit of a pursuit force,

Elabruen forces mass for delaying action; dice indicate remaining unit strength

Cavalry and skirmishers on my left flank guard the ford

We chose scenario 8, "Melee", for our second game.  We switched armies, since Norman wishes to maintain an impartiality to these forces, rather than espousing loyalty to one of them. The scenario involves both sides attempting to control a dominant hill, with forces coming in piecemeal for both sides.

Elabruenese defending a large hill in Scenario 8

Since Norman's forces started in possession of the hill, it was up to me to take it, and I did start with a larger force.  Unfortunately for me, I was still figuring out how tactics work in this game, so ended up spending too much effort uselessly attempting to get an artillery unit in position.  I was never able to put enough concentrated fire on the hill to clear it, and Norman was victorious again.

Not a good day for Occiterre...

After the game, we did a quick hot wash, and concluded that the side with the need to move into the enemy fire zone first was going to be at a disadvantage.  However, with the random force assignment, we did note that the battle would have been much different if his force had included cavalry instead of the skirmisher who had made trouble in the woods through the whole game, for example.

We had intended to play some Full Thrust, a space game that's been in Norman's collection for many years, but the business of digging out Legos and forming them into two spaceship squadrons took longer than expected.  We boxed the ships up for the next visit, which will give me a chance to read up on the rules as well.

 Before his departure this morning, we threw one more One Hour Wargames scenario on the table.  This time the battle was #10, "Late Arrivals".  A random throw left me with the Elabruenese as defenders in a race against time, as I started with 2 units against his 6, and the reinforcements were not particularly prompt.

I did, at least, have a town to defend.  This time around, Norman got an army list with cavalry and no artillery, and the cavalry can't enter the town.

That made the open ground a dangerous place for my troops, but the difficulties Norman had in wearing down my town defenders fast enough ultimately gave me the victory, leaving me one for three for the weekend. 

Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and it was nice to have the opportunity to get his project on the table for the first time.  I would play One Hour Wargames again; it was neither quite so static nor so fast as Ross's review had led me to expect, but I should note that he used the ancients rules section, while we used the horse and musket rules.

Western League Defeat in the Spaetzelthal

Sometime during the War of the Western League, some years before the outbreak of the Not Quite Seven Years War,  a League army advanced down the Spaetzelthal.  Falling back before them Colonel Adelmann, of Schoeffen-Buschhagen, was determined to stand at the Spaetleseberg, a position which dominated the valley, hoping that reinforcements would arrive before he was overwhelmed.  He had sent word to General Schwarzadler, his immediate superior and commander of the combined Wachovia/Schoeffen-Buschhagen  Coalition force, to hasten forward with all possible speed to reinforce his position.

The Spaetzelthal, Adelmann Regiment deployed on the slopes of the Spaetleseberg (view to the south)

Anticipating a difficult fight, Colonel Adelmann ordered his troops to erect hasty breastworks to fortify their position.  A single battery of guns was sited near the center of the Spaetleseberg, and a squadron of cavalry placed in a reserve as the southern end of the ridge.  It was none too soon.  In the distance could be heard the fifes and drums of the approaching League army.  Scouts quickly reported that the defenders were outnumbered by almost four to one.  

Situation near the start; the cavalry battle begins

The initial clash of cavalry

After some preliminary maneuvering, the Adelmann detachment was faced by two regiments of League troops; the Hesse-Hattemstadt regiment at the north, and the Schluesselbrett regiment to their south.  A regiment of Hesse-Hattemstadt cavalry, somewhat reduced by the previous days' marching and skirmishing, swept around the south end of the Spaetleseberg, to be met by the depleted Schoeffen-Buschhagen dragoons.  An extended cavalry battle of charge and countercharge soon developed, and the S-B dragoons had never had a finer day.  More than holding their own against the League horse, they drew back the Leaguers with terrible losses.  They were sustained in their fight by the timely arrival of the lead element of the hoped for reinforcements of General Schwarzadler, a unit of Wachovia curiassiers.  Eventually, the survivors of the beaten Hess-Hattemstadt horse retired from the field, while the Coalition cavalry rallied in open ground between two small woods.

Schlüsselbrett infantry attack in the center

While the cavalry battle was raging, though, the situation for the Coalition was in doubt on the slopes of the Spaetleseberg.  The Schluesselbrett infantry deployed into line and engaged in a deadly short range firefight with a wing of the Adelmann regiment holding the south end of the hill, and, further north, the other wing of the Adelmann regiment was assailed by the Hess-Hattemstadt regiment, aided by a detachment of Saxe-Kirchdorf jaegers.

Reinforcements rush toward the fight

Help was near to hand, though.  A column of troops, led by the remaining detachment of the Adelmann regiment, hastened toward the fight.

The last detachment of the Adelmann regiment charges the Schlueselbrett troops

The arriving troops counterattacked the Schluesselbrett regiment, and were driven off.  The Schluesselbrett regiment's casualties had been horrifying, but their morale held, for the moment.  As they rallied after the melee, the survivors of the Adelmann regiment withdrew from the field.

However, the Wachovians had arrived, and a sharp fighter between the advancing Wachovian light infantry and the battered Schluesselbrett regiment proved to be too much for the latter, and they too retired to reorganize.

At the north end of the Spaetleseberg, the Hesse-Hattemstadt forces drove off the S-Bs and occupied their position, but the arrival of fresh Wachovians proved too much for them and they were shortly forced to retire.

It was now late in the evening, and the League commander considered his position.  His Saxe-Weilenz troops were still fresh, but slightly outnumbered by the Wachovians.  There seemed little chance of clearing the critical positions on the Spaetleseberg before dark, and, with the possibility of further enemy reinforcements to be considered, he ordered a withdrawal.

The commanders

Norman and I were probably at the game for a little over two hours, and it ran to seven turns.  The scenario was "Reinforcements in the Defense: On The Table", number 15 from C.S. Grant's Scenarios for Wargames (the "Green Book").  The rules were Lawford and Young's Charge!, and the scenario translation was on the basis of 1 book unit to 1 company or squadron of infantry and cavalry, and 2 book units of artillery to one gun on the table.

We have used the scenario on multiple occasion previously, and, given the rules, we added the breastworks to the defenders, to give them a chance against the attackers.  With no random morale rules, it's difficult for a Charge unit to hold against odds for very long.  Given the basing of our troops, and the fact the the book specifies that this scenario is to be fought across the narrow end of a rectangular table, it got a little crowded.  We had intended to fight it without the unsightly movement trays, but Norman ended up faced with a time constraint, so we tray-ed the troops for convenience.

Map of our theater of conflict

The War of the Western League is what we get when playing at home; it's our excuse for running a game using only the troops of countries stored here, and involves Schluesselbrett, Hesse-Hattemstadt, and Saxe-Weilenz against the coalition of Schoeffen-Buschhagen and Wachovia.  We used William's Free City of Wiegenburg troops as stand-ins for the still-to-be-painted Saxe-Weilenzers today.

It's been over a year since these troops were on the table, so we were glad of an opportunity to deploy them.  I do need to decide on some rules that would allow use of smaller units to make more efficient use of our limited 5 foot by 6 foot table.

1/72 scale digression

Norman was delayed somewhat by traffic yesterday, so the 40mm battle remains to be fought later today. While waiting for breakfast time to arrive, we set up a quick game of 1/72 Hordes of the Things, pitting my incomplete Cold Islands barbarian army against Norman's Mizarene field force. (Basically Vikings versus Byzantines...) Unfortunately for the Emperor's finest, their training and military manuals were no match for the ferocity of the Northmen in the first skirmish, as the Mizarene riders vanished under a hail of arrows, and their knights disappeared in a blinding flash of magic produced by the Blue Sorceress. Not long after, their general was surprised by the appearance of an angry warband on his flank, and he fell in the confused melee which followed...